The Null Hypothesis
by IVIaedhros
Summary: When I’m done, I will ask a man, ‘Do you know Kanryuu Takeda?’ and he’ll say to me, ‘Sir, I don’t have a clue who you’re talking about…Dark, miniature AU.
1. Deviance

**Product Warning: **_Greetings Honored Reader-san! Thank you for reading Null Hypothesis, my mutant baby that started out as a way to hook up Aoshi x Kaoru/Soujiro x Megumi romantically, but was tragically (or was it happily?) transformed to provide a convenient excuse for me to breakaway from the fluff I'd been working on and indulge in some good-old fashion violence, self-gratifying wangst and experimentation as a writer. Expect updates every two days or so until it's finished.  
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**The Null Hypothesis**** by IVIaedhros. **

**Disclaimer: Ruroni Kenshin and all associated properties are my own copyrighted material. Any attempt to distribute or create new material without my express permission will result in legal action. For additional information, contact my legal consulting team at 972 836 0066. Toodles. **

**Beta Readers: AlsoSprachOdin and Mind Asylum**

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The Takeda mansion and its hedonistic mix of Japanese and Western luxuries was a true product of the slow, but utterly inexorable integration of Western culture into the once unbroken stream of Japanese culture; where there had once been a clear mountain brook, swift and straight, there was now a wide and churning river, full of hidden eddies, rocks and tidal pools. The easily navigable had become a changing labyrinth that a man of proper strength and cunning could exploit. Some might uselessly resist the inevitable changes brought on by the Black Ships and their oft forgotten predecessors, the Jesuits, for destroying the beauty and pride of Japan. However, the objective might learn to appreciate the true advantages the West had to offer while still maintaining the iron core of strength native only to the sons of Yamato. And Aoshi Shinamori, Okashira of the Oniwaban since the age of sixteen, was nothing if not objective and cunning, while strength he had long ago learned.

If only his employer could be so appreciative.

So while Kanryuu tediously droned on about the necessity of maintaining a strict watch over the Nagoya-Kyoto line, Aoshi Shinamori mentally brushed his fingers over the worn, but still exquisitely maintained ivory keys of an early Érard grand piano that had been supposedly owned by a famous European whose music Kanryuu claimed to admire. Ironic, as the man was completely tone deaf and often claimed to despise the very things he lauded with his fine mansion. The underworld entrepreneur could only see the immediate and established use for the tools he possessed: impressing those he envied.

"Excuse me, Aoshi." Kanryuu's eyes had narrowed slightly and a grimace marred his otherwise smooth face. His employer was clearly annoyed. Aoshi's visual focus had never left Kanryuu in the slightest, but Kanryuu could be surprisingly perceptive at times. It was such a shameful waste that he never truly exploited that natural shrewdness.

"Damn it, Aoshi, have you been paying the least bit attention to me?" Kanryuu reached over and picked up a cigar he'd been wearing down over the past twenty-two and half minutes of grand plotting and took a heady drag before expelling the acrid smoke in one, long sigh. Aoshi curled his nose slightly in distaste.

"This latest operation is absolutely imperative for the successful transition of the syndicate to legitimate arms trade. We've been dependent on that _pansuke_ for far too long and the longer we need her for profits, the more chances she has to ruin everything! Right now you and your men need to be concentrating on nothing but making sure that last shipment of opium is safely hidden so we can determine what we will do with it. We can't afford to be caught with it by the government, but we need to offset the production expenses." Kanryuu took several much deeper drags from his cigar before accidently ingesting some of the foul poison he insisted on inspiring. Aoshi automatically stifled the urge the sigh as his employer hacked and wheezed.

Without moving his unsettling gaze, Aoshi waited until Kanryuu had finally cleared his lungs before proceeding to once again explain what he'd already said two weeks ago.

"For someone who wishes to become another of the Meiji's suitors you spend far too much time striving against it. Its interests are now yours." While Aoshi talked, his thoughts were already wandering towards a rare edition of the _Man'yōshū. _Idly, he contemplated ordering Beshimi to appropriate the masterpiece from Kanryuu's holding. Kami knew the man would never note its absence.

"Speak plainly, Shinamori." Kanryuu's order was accompanied by a fixed stare which the young Okashira ignored. The part of him that would have been angered by the petty man's insolence was already meditating over the verse of the lady Fujiwara's reply to Emperor Temmu, while the part of him that was purely logic and black ice kept his gaze steady and his reply appropriate.

"Use the government's newfound zeal against narcotics. The shipment will arrive near enough to government's storehouses that it can easily be planted amongst the police's supplies of confiscated opium. With the careful placement of the opium and a few bribes, you can easily bring the investigative departments down the heads of those officials that have been hounding you."

"But the costs," Kanryuu spluttered.

Aoshi coldly cut him off and words prepared long before the supposed criminal mastermind had ever dreamed of giving up his opium trade came back with faultless recollection.

"-will be offset by the leverage gained with the government. Those who opposed you will either be removed or their integrity cast into doubt."

"But that _still _doesn't balance out the associated costs of production and distribution!" Aoshi actually felt one his eyes twitch ever so slightly at this. The man was in his early thirties, nearly six years the elder, and yet Aoshi felt as if he were dealing with a sullen teen that refused to give up on an argument if only for the sake of proving his ineptitude.

"The losses are nothing compared to what you have and will make. More importantly, there is influence and leverage." Having said his piece, Aoshi pivoted on his heel and left Kanryuu to his own thoughts. He did not have time to waste.

Aoshi was almost through with the door and working on the problem what to do with a certain doctor when he was surprised by Kanryuu.

"Aoshi," Kanryuu's usual bluster held a hint of steel; mostly contrived, but still there. Mildly amused, Aoshi turned around, "come here, Aoshi." Aoshi turned around to face Kanryuu fully. The older man was slightly hunched over the table where he'd placed his cigar, the smoke curling around him. Aoshi noted for the first time that Kanryuu's suit, a well-cut gray ensemble that made him appear taller, was newly pressed and his usual glasses were missing. In short, Kanryuu was trying to intimidate him, Aoshi Shinamori, child genius and appointed leader of the defenders of Edo Castle by the age sixteen, now a veteran killer at twenty-six. Thoroughly intrigued, Aoshi put on a slight look of discomfiture and walked back towards Kanryuu. For the first time in a very long time, Kanryuu Takeda had Aoshi's undivided attention.

"This move is going to be very complicated and it's going to require the utter loyalty of all my retainers." Kanryuu kept Aoshi pinned under as hard a stare as he could manage. Mentally, the Okashira saluted him for maintaining a healthy mix of intimidation and respect in his speech and body language.

"And while I trust you to do your job with my life, I can't have you and your ninja go running off every time someone decides to challenge you," Kanryuu's tone still resembled that of a friend patiently admonishing an old partner. "More importantly, I can't have you running off against my orders…you know, loyalty and all that."

Kanryuu leaned in closer to Aoshi, cutting into his physical space and filling his nose with the disgusting scent of burning tobacco. Inwardly, Aoshi was amused. Paperwork really was so boring when compared to games of blind man's bluff. Almost, he smiled back as Kanryuu gave him his best shark's grin.

"Which is why I think it's time we need to have a little talk about your own loyalties, Okashira," and so at last, he came to the real reason for the show. Kanryuu suddenly stepped away and clasped his hands behind his back. A jaunty grin appeared on his face. "Several days ago, I ordered Hannya to stay by my side and guard me. You know what he said, hmm?" His smile widened ever so slightly, "Go on, and take a guess."

Aoshi remained silent, waiting to see what Kanryuu would say.

The change came instantly. Kanryuu was in his space again and coldly threatening. It was rather impressive. "He told me he takes orders only from you and walked off…now I know I reported that incident and demanded that he be disciplined…yet, nothing seems to have happened, which leaves me wondering about just where _your _loyalty lies." Kanryuu's overlong and surprisingly sharp finger jabbed towards Aoshi's chest in accusation.

Aoshi casually brushed Kanryuu's hand aside. The game had been amusing, but it was time to end it. "Hannya is perfectly correct in his statement. He and the rest of my men owe no loyalty except what they freely give me."

"Well, in that case, maybe I'll have to rectify that. Maybe Hannya can take a nice long break, hmmm?"

It took several seconds, but Aoshi did receive some vague satisfaction when Kanryuu finally realized the reason he couldn't breathe properly was because Aoshi's deceptively powerful hand had wrapped itself around his neck.

"Never threaten my men, Kanryuu." Aoshi quiet monotone could have frozen glass. With a light shove, he released the merchant to gasp for breath.

Aoshi turned and began walking towards the door for the final time. "We of the Oniwaban work with you to prove ourselves as the strongest of the revolution. That is our mission. It would be wise not to remove our motivation for continued cooperation." With those words, Aoshi left Kanryuu and walked back to the doorway for the final time.

"Good night, Kanryuu."

Aoshi closed the door right as Kanryuu's screams erupted at his back. Aoshi calculated that they had at least until the end of the transfer to leave Kanryuu's services. After that, he would take his four men; his family, and lead them somewhere else where they could find employ in their dying trade.

-))—((-

As the last light of dusk faded, Aoshi inwardly cursed his luck at being so tired while on the water. Relatively comfortable as he waited with Hannya in cargo hold of an old cargo ship, it had become difficult to keep his eyes open after spending the twenty-four plus hours awake. The meeting with Kanryuu had unsettled him enough that he had wasted no time in calling his men together in preparation to leave their current occupations. He could grab some precious sleep soon enough, but he had to resist for a little while longer.

The gentle splash of water against the ship's hull was a lulling effect that even Aoshi wasn't immune to. The ninja might have been used to operating for long hours, but the slow roll of the boat was beginning to wear down his iron control. Aoshi did his best to roll his mind through various mental exercises while he and Hannya patiently waited for the rest of the Oniwaban to arrive. The ten meter junk had been covertly purchased by Aoshi several years ago to be used as a mobile base of operations. It had performed admirably in the role in addition having served as everything from supply transport to hidden torture chamber.

The sound of two new footfalls, one nearly silent and the other quiet, but solid, alerted Aoshi to the arrival of Shikijou and Beshimi. Fully awakened, Aoshi tracked the pair's footsteps as they made quickly made their way from the bow of the craft, overhead and then to the cabin's entryway. There was a quiet knocking in predetermined rhythm, letting Aoshi and Hannya know that there was no danger. Hannya gave the OK and the two men appeared in the stairway, both soaking wet and looking as if they'd been through the wringer several times. Mid winter had only just ended and while warmer than it had been in the past, there were weeks where they saw nothing, but icy rain. This was one such week.

The two men stepped in without further word and began to glumly strip themselves. The sopping clothes were hastily tossed in bags of waxed leather while fresh garments were donned. Hannya stepped forward with two small tins of fish and pickles for each of the weary ninja. The two nodded their thanks and began their report.

"The night is clear, Okashira," Beshimi said after he had gratefully eaten the last sweetened pickle. "I canvassed the entire block from rooftop and there's not a soul in sight." The deadly projectile user threw both his cans simultaneously and bounced them off the far wall and into a barrel used for trash.

"Same here boss." Shikijou was still chewing away thoughtfully on his fish. The muscular fighter was still rather suspicious of the canning process in general thanks to the rumors that seemed to crop up every year about the metal contaminating the can's contents. "I left old Hot Lips 'bout a half hour ago back near the Tokaiden intersection. He should be in the woods nearby waiting for us."

"You want to tell us what's going on, boss?" Beshimi asked out of curiosity while hopping up onto a stack of crates near the aft end of the ship. It was extraordinarily rare for the entire group to gather as they did, especially after they had found a regular means of employment.

Aoshi moved over towards the center of his men near the only available light source; a small kerosene lamp shinning fitfully against the dark.

"It is time to leave Kanryuu and seek employment elsewhere."

Hannya's masked face betrayed no emotion. There was no reason for there to be any. Aoshi had already told him the previous night, but Beshimi and Shikijou both sported identical expressions of surprise.

"Th'hell? What'd Weasel Bastard do to get this, eh?" Shikijou crossed his scarred limbs over his massive chest and leaned back against the creaking wall. The German trained native out of Osaka sported an angry grimace, though Aoshi knew his true feelings were undoubtedly otherwise. The man lived for true battle, as they all did. Service with Kanryuu had been good reprieve from the meager scrounging following the revolution, but dogs of war can only be satisfied so long with sleep, no matter how opulent the bed.

Beshimi was of the same mind, though the much shorter ninja didn't even bother concealing his feelings as his thin face lit with a sly grin. "Che, I guess we can't count on those soft bunks anymore. Hah, would've liked to have seen Kitsune-chan one more time at least."

"Silence, both of you!" Hannya's terse command immediately nipped the upcoming conversation in the bud. The scarred killer had been uncharacteristically irritable ever since he'd discovered that he was indirectly the cause of their relocation.

"The Okashira has not even finished briefing you and you're already going off. This is no time for games." Shikijou shrugged slightly, completely unperturbed by the reprimand and turned back towards Aoshi. Beshimi took a chance to glare at Hannya for second before falling in line. Aoshi ignored the interruption. His men were tired and they were going along unquestioning with a change that, while potentially exciting, would uproot them from the relatively comfortable lifestyle as syndicate employees.

"Two nights ago, Kanryuu and I had a confrontation over the purpose of the Oniwaban. It was not resolved. I have reason to believe he will attempt to betray us after he has successfully rooted himself in the arms trade. We are meeting tonight so that everyone may be informed of the situation. "

Aoshi glanced around at his men again. None of them appeared particularly surprised or upset anymore. They probably hadn't been in the first place. Kanryuu's trustworthiness was well known to those who saw him everyday. Besides being notoriously insecure, the man would sell his own soul in a heartbeat if the profit was high enough. The Oniwaban's strength had been necessary for him to overcome his fellow rivals in the drug market. With them gone, he no longer felt comfortable employing men whose loyalty could not be bought by wealth, power or fear.

"Continue to work for Kanryuu as if nothing has occurred. Treat him and his with courtesy and respect until I have completed my plans for our future. Unofficially, I have contacted several government officials who are…"

Aoshi and the others were instantly silenced as Hannya raised a single, open hand; the signal for silence. As Aoshi stood still and intently keyed his ears into the background noise, he almost missed it. But mixed in with the gentle creaking of the junk's salt laden boards and the rhythmic sloshing of the ocean, there was another sound. The strange noise originated from above on the deck, near to the prow under which Hannya stood. It almost reminded Aoshi of the soft splash of a slow, wide waterfall over rock.

_A gentle river fall escaping winter's ice to run over stones blue and gray and under the sakura; he held a laughing baby girl who called him Onii-san. _

A pungent smellboth oily and vaporous filled his nose. He watched in slow motion as tiny rivulets of clear liquid began to drip through the cracks of their ship, flowing from fore to aft like the creeping summer showers under a canopy of trees. As Aoshi's survival instinct dropped his limp body to the floor like a bunraku puppet with the master's hand removed, the small part of his mind still capable of deliberate thought quietly damned him for failing his men so horribly.

The next thing he knew he was on the floor, the air suddenly much harder to breathe with stinging fumes and a heat on his back that bled through the fine white trench coat and prickling his skin. Aoshi twisted his head to the side to reorient himself; he found that he had been transported to hell. Above him flowed the rolling waves of red fire and filthy black smoke. Wooden crates ignited or exploded into splinters while tiny holes of light appeared like magic in the walls. And in the middle of it all danced a tiny scarecrow, his head on fire…

"Okashira!"

Shikijou sprang through the air and landed on top of his young leader, his muscled bulk forming a shield against the flaming beam that would've crushed Aoshi bodily if it had him. With a muffled snarl, the scared man shrugged off the flaming debris and stumbled upwards. Aoshi found another hand grasping him roughly by the shoulder as Hannya's gauntleted hand joined in with Shikijou's. His own horror prevented him from doing anything more than giving anything more than a stumbling attempt to push himself up. His two subordinates did not need their Okashira's strength at the moment though and together they easily dragged him through the hell ship and up towards the main hatch.

By then that portion of his brain that controlled his tactical thinking roared back to renewed life. You didn't light a fire in a forest to kill the quarry. You flushed them out through the narrow pass and cut them down in one fell swoop.

"Hannya, Shiki-"

As soon as the three ninjas cleared the hatch and stepped into the night, there came a burst of explosive coughs. Splinters flew in all directions around them. To his side, Hannya stumbled and Aoshi felt a sharp pressure in his left thigh. Their momentum was too great to be stopped, however, and the trio sailed over the side railings and into the cold grey sea. Aoshi gasped then choked as salty water flooded his lungs. Trained instinct took over again and instead of frantically trying to rush to the surface and relieve the burning in his chest, he quickly began stripping off his trench coat and boots.

Aoshi frantically tried to right himself. He'd gone in head first and immediately began twisting and turning as he stripped out of his extra garments. He was hopelessly disoriented and the black abyss that pressed against him equally from all sides gave no clue as to what direction was up. Aoshi Shinamori might well have died right there, hovering unknowingly over the muddy bottom of the Tokyo harbor. But Aoshi had already given in to that helplessness earlier.

_Never again. _

With a cold clarity, all his old instincts reasserted themselves. Emotion could come later. His men needed him.

Aoshi willed himself to be limp in the water, to stop useless thrashing and oxygen consumption. Continuing to ruthlessly suppress the urge to breathe in, to save his air, Aoshi calmly brought his hand near his face and let out small, continuous breath. Even as he felt the burn in his chest grow brighter and the pressure grow stronger, he kept it up. He had to feel for it, feel for the way up with his cold benumbed hands. Feel for it, feel for it…

_There!_

Aoshi shot upwards with all as fast he could, his long limbs serving to quickly propel him upwards. A darkness that had nothing to do with the lack of sunlight was beginning to creep into his vision. His chest felt as if it were about to cave into itself. Aoshi kept swimming. He had made his decision and somehow he knew that he would live yet a while longer, no matter how swiftly he was beginning to hate the idea.

After an eternity later, Aoshi's head broke the surface. While he unabashedly gasped for air, Aoshi took stock of his surroundings. He had emerged some fifteen meters off the moored junk amidst several other traditional Japanese cargo ships and one modern steamer. In garish light thrown by the flames of their dying vessel, Aoshi was able to see the silhouettes of men moving swiftly over the decks of the other ships. Resignedly turning his head, Aoshi could see no avenue of escape. His would-be executioners had placed gunmen on the decks of vessels moored around their old junk. The thick smoke and naturally poor visibility wouldn't conceal him for much longer.

"Okashira!" Aoshi jerked around to see Shikijou and a strangely limp Hannya struggling to stay next to bow of a vessel some five meters away to the west.

Inwardly, the part of Aoshi that still possessed emotions screamed at Shikijou. The fool had found Hannya and himself in a good, covered and concealed position. Why call attention to himself? Aoshi's logic informed him that he had approximately six seconds before the men on top surrounding ships were able to find them.

"Swim!" Aoshi doubted he had ever screamed so loud in his life as he frantically pointed in the direction he knew without a doubt held their only possibility of escape. Burning energy reserves he didn't know he had, Aoshi flung himself forward in a frantic crawl stroke as Shikijou moved forward far too slowly with Hannya. Around him, he heard the faint cries of men carried over the water. Five seconds later and Aoshi had caught up with the struggling Shikijou. Frantically, they both grabbed one of Hannya's arms and began dragging the ninja towards the relative safety of a nearby vessel. Seven seconds later and the water erupted with tiny splashes as bullets.

They were so close. All they had to do was get around the corner of nearby ship's stern and they would have a temporary reprieve.

More splashes. A vicious curse escaped from Shikijou while Hannya let out a strangled moan.

They made it behind the ship. The bullets stopped.

Aoshi tiredly noted that Hannya's weight seemed to have doubled since they reached the other side of the ship. He looked down and noted the blood in the water. His eyes wandered over the thick red cloud that seemed to be creeping out from under the back of Hannya's shirt and how Shikijou was no longer kicking with both legs. While Shikijou mutely shouted at him, asking his leader what to do, Aoshi calmly considered what he could remember of how the ships were situated amongst one another. Their current refuge was too far from the original ambush for their assailants to hop from deck to deck, which they undoubtedly had in the beginning, but that didn't mean they weren't capable of following them in smaller dingies or other hand powered craft.

Aoshi turned his gaze back towards the wall of bobbing ships he knew hid the western shoreline. They had to reach it within the next twenty minutes or they would be assured of death. While he made these calculations, he realized that it had become an accepted fact that Hannya would be left to die. That small, human part of him that had been ruthlessly shut down when he had first hit the cold water came roaring back to life. The Oniwaban did not leave their comrades behind, but would they condemn they give up a viable chance to escape so one was as good as dead wouldn't die alone? One look at Shikijou's pale face answered his question. He knew what his comrade would say.

"This way," Aoshi said, jerking his head in the direction he knew they had to futilely try to swim, "We have to make it to shore." Shikijou nodded tersely, the fire returned to his eyes even as his amazing strength failed against his injuries and the alien environment. What had he ever done in his previous lives to earn men such as these?

With a strength that belied their wounds, the two men dragged their almost inanimate comrade forward, one stroke at a time. If he could not give his men the rewarding life and glorious death they had all earned, then the least he could do in his failure was to assure that the last remaining defenders of Edo Castle died together, fighting against the odds.

Forty-five…

Thirty-six …thirty-one…thirty…

Aoshi was gasping for breath as Hannya's weight seemed have more than doubled. Desperately glancing over at his two comrades, he noticed that Shikijou was barely moving at all, where before he had been pulling almost as powerfully as Aoshi. Aoshi tried to redouble his efforts, but it was wasted. He was too tired and the other men too much deadweight.

"O-Okashira," Aoshi almost missed the rough gasps that came from Hannya; probably had missed him earlier. Aoshi didn't spare him a breath. He kept pulling.

"Okashira...Oka-shira," he kept swimming. At the rate they were going, they were going to get mowed down by Kanryuu's men or drown in the water, just like he knew they would. He couldn't quit though. To do so would be to surrender the only method of fighting left to him. As Aoshi reached forward to take another desperate stroke, he felt a sharp pain blossom on his shoulder near his neck. Someone had deliberately attacked his shoulder nerve. Aoshi turned his incensed eyes towards Hannya and watched in bafflement as the injured man ripped himself away from the already weak Shikijou.

Deep inside, Aoshi already knew what Hannya was doing and it left him utterly furious. Moving as fast as his cold and injury wearied body would allow him, he swam towards his fellow ninja, fully intent on smashing the stubborn fool's head in so he could drag him ashore. Aoshi was almost close enough to grasp the lapel of Hannya's uniform when he inexplicably felt a searing pain in his gut. Aoshi looked down in disbelief as he saw the silver gleam of Hannya's claws in the water.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Aoshi was beyond furious.

"Making sure you do your duty." Hannya barely managed to get the words out as his head slid under the waves and then came up again as gave his all for those last few seconds. His words stopped Aoshi more effectively than any blade could have.

"Hannya, get back here!" Aoshi commanded, his voice roughly breaking. But Hannya had already forced the air out his lungs with his final breath and, without so much as a final word, slipped beneath the waves.

Aoshi almost charged back under the waves after his oldest and dearest comrade, but Hannya's final words were echoing fresh in his mind. For an eternal moment, Aoshi floated there in the cold, black ocean as two opposing desires warred within him. In the end, he couldn't escape what he already knew. With a vicious scream more fit for a wounded animal than a man, Aoshi turned around and sped towards Shikijou. Grasping the rapidly fading man from behind under the armpits, Aoshi set about completing the last leg towards the shore.

-))—((-

"Watch the furniture. For each crack, I give you one in your bones."

"Of course, oh great Master Inpo…"

Megumi hardly felt the sharp crack the flat-faced China man delivered to the side of her ear. Megumi clenched her teeth down hard in a visibly painful grimace that came more of out of habit and a weak, but still intact sense of preservation than any real pain. She almost wished she could feel the pain. Wearily, Megumi Takani continued in her unsteady walk through the length of Takeda Manor. It was a common ritual of hers and one of the only options open to her for fighting the shakes. Not that it was easy to walk upright when you were either twitching like a puppet or swaying like around all topsy-tervy like a drunken sailor just returned from a long voyage at sea.

"Lady, you are so clumsy," the pug-faced thug for said for what must have been the hundredth time.

From what Megumi could gather, Yu Zhou, or "Master Inpo" as she called him, was a low-level enforcer from Hong Kong who had been foisted upon Kanryuu by one of his business associates. Kanryuu despised his Chinese masters and the lame-duck fools they seemed to delight in gifting him with. That the Chinese drug lords couldn't care less about the Yu Zhou was obvious, but they had made it clear that Kanryuu would suffer repercussions if he were to disrespect their "liaison". Not knowing what else to do with the fool, Kanryuu kept him occupied by either sending him on inspection tours so he could act the big shot or put him on VIP (IE Megumi) guard duty. It served the three-fold purpose of keeping Yu Zhou out of Kanryuu's greasy hair, stroking Yu Zhou's over-inflated ego and making Megumi's life even more of a living hell.

Despite her best efforts (not much, admittedly) Megumi succumbed to her sporadically twitching leg and blundered into her trailing escort. Comically surprised, Yu Zhou smashed the right side of her ear with his open palm before clumsily pushing the off balance doctor back to fully upright.

"Woman, I swear, if you don't stop this, hrmmm!" He back handedly slapped his right hand against his left like a grandmother threatening to deliver some proper courtesy to a young hussy.

Megumi let her face slip into a well practiced smile. "And this is one of my better days. You should've seen me yesterday, Master Inpo. I had so much seishu that I was almost tripping down the hallway." Megumi smiled teasingly. She wasn't called _kitsune_ for nothing.

"You are not allowed seishu!" Yu Zhou sharply enunciated.

"Of course not, Master Inpo," Megumi kept what she thought of as her bimbo smile thoughtlessly plastered on her face while she continued to put most of her thought and effort into putting one foot in front of the other. Staying upright actually wasn't all that hard, once one got used to it, but keeping to a relatively straight line was quite challenging. The opium withdrawals kept her mind in a heavy fog while alternately tormenting her with muscle spasms and digestion troubles, among other ills.

Her dear Inpo looked to be on the verge of hitting her again when one of the manor servants came over and told them that Aoshi Shinamori had demanded her presence. Yu Zhou swore in his native Chinese, but he wasted no time roughly grabbing Megumi under one of her arms and dragging her towards the carriage outside main entrance where the Oniwaban's leader was apparently waiting. Yu Zhou hated the Oniwaban, but he didn't dare flout his superficial authority over the ninjas. They were too independent of Kanryuu and therefore his own Chinese masters.

The Oniwaban's Okashira stood alone next to a fine, if mud splattered two-horse carriage patterned in the Western style. Unexpectedly, her usual escorts were not there. Aoshi was alone without any of the other Oniwaban and dressed not in his traditional suit and white trench coat, but in a set of baggy gray robes marked by several unknown stains. Despite the fatiguing haze the opium left her in, she also noted that Aoshi was alone and her only escort. Her brain tiredly set to work as to why this was important, but it kept getting burning out after only a few coherent thoughts and she had to start over again.

Yu Zhou moved forward and gestured towards the awaiting carriage.

"What are you doing with her? I was not told-"

Megumi never did find out what he was not told. Aoshi had simply taken one long step forward to meet Yu Zhou before he smashed a kunai into the back of the foreigner's brainstem. Catching the crumbling body up in his long arms, Aoshi unceremoniously dragged the corpse over to the right side of the manor and dumped it into the bushes.

Aoshi turned back around to find Megumi staring at him disinterestedly.

"What was that for?"

_Megumi looked up to find Aoshi staring down at her with eyes that held a slight hint of madness; like a slip of mercury in dark wells. She recognized the look because it was so similar to the one she saw every time she looked in the mirror. She could also guess what he was about to say. _

"_What do I have to work with?" Megumi asked quietly. _

**Glossary**

**Inpo: **Impotent, pansy, weak. Megumi uses it to tease her captor.

**Kitsune: **Fox spirits, renowned for their capricious guile and power. Megumi is sometimes referred to as a kitsune, fox, or foxy lady .

**Kunai: **Dart-like Japanese knife with a long, diamond head, thin handle and a metal loop at the end. It's what Aoshi uses to kill Yu Zhou.

**Man'yōshū: **The earliest anthology of Japanese poetry; revered as a national treasure. Kanryuu has a rare edition of the work and Aoshi covets it.

**Okashira: **Aoshi's title as the leader; essentially means leader or commander.

**Pansuke: **Whore. Megumi is sometimes called this by her captors.

**Seishu: **Rice wine. What Megumi claims to be drunk on.

_**A/N**_

_**Well, that was interesting. I hope that despite my satirical little intro I didn't come off as too much of a snob. I also hope those of you who actually stayed with me for the first chapter will continue to read as I'm pretty excited about this fic'. Oh, and reviews...yea, this story is already complete so no worries there, however, if you enjoy this and want to see similar material later on, review. Or you could just review anyway because it takes like, two seconds, and really helps out the story...maybe...please...  
**_


	2. A Standard Error

**Product Warning:****Do NOT call that number and challenge my claims to all things Ruroni Kenshin. You will be legally and financially RAPED.**

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**The Null Hypothesis**** by IVIaedhros. **

**Disclaimer: No Chinese were harmed during the making of this fic': only nerdy white people.**

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_Catching the crumbling body up in his long arms, Aoshi unceremoniously dragged the corpse over to the right side of the manor and dumped it into the bushes. _

_Aoshi turned back around to find Megumi staring at him disinterestedly._

"_What was that for?" _

As Megumi tumbled limply through the interior of the richly appointed, but still cramped carriage, she began to truly wonder what was going on. While it was difficult to keep track of time, she guessed they'd been riding for ten minutes. Meanwhile, the opium haze was wearing off bit by bit. And the more she thought, the more excited she became. Kanryuu had never left her unguarded since she first fell into his hands two years ago. She was the goose that laid his golden eggs after all, and if she were lost, the opium that fueled Kanryuu's empire and set him above his rivals was lost as well.

But here she was, sprung from prison by the chief executioner himself. Megumi desperately reasoned that this was being done against Kanryuu's will and that she would be free of the death merchant. What she was being freed to was another question entirely. She just prayed that it would either be a quick death or some form of slavery that didn't involve her destroying the lives of countless innocents because she was too weak to successfully kill herself. She never considered the possibility of true freedom.

Megumi's grim chain of thoughts was interrupted as Aoshi brought the carriage to sudden halt, causing Megumi to slam into the wooden paneling that divided her from the front passenger compartment. While she was picking herself up off floor, the left passenger door was opened up. Aoshi grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the carriage.

"Follow me," he said before setting off at a swift pace, forcing Megumi to catch up.

Megumi fell in behind Aoshi without comment. She looked around, her eyes having adjusted somewhat to the darkness in the unlit carriage and she could faintly make out the low silhouettes of shanties and what looked like a forest stripped bare of its leaves. Aoshi had brought her to the bay.

Aoshi turned in the direction of the ships and began walking even faster, while Megumi struggled to keep up. The immediate aftereffects of her spider's web opium had almost worn off and were swiftly being replaced by a terrible ache. Between trying to steal time from the inevitable peak in her suffering and navigating through the maze of buildings, Megumi was sorely pressed. Thankfully, Aoshi eventually came to a halt and dipped into some kind of hole under one of the shanties.

Megumi unsteadily followed after him and found an extremely tight stair way descending into what looked like a storage cellar. It was pitch black and she nearly retched at the smell; a sort of heavy mix of decaying fish and a thick, greasy scent she couldn't identify. Suddenly a faint light appeared inside the cellar and she could make out a small stairwell. Megumi suppressed her nausea as best she could.

After managing to knock her head on the entryway, Megumi entered what appeared to be some sort of crude processing room. The only source of light was an antiquated brass lamp that hung from an iron ring in the center of the ceiling. At the far wall there hung a rack of rusted cutting implements that looked like they had been lifted from a butcher shop. The room itself was covered on all sides with a rough plaster that might have once been white, but was now stained everywhere browns of black and red rust, while empty cubby holes encircled the room on three sides. Once, they had held something, if the extra stains and scraped plaster was anything to go by.

As Aoshi walked towards the center, Megumi's addled brain suddenly noticed the cause of her release from captivity. Splayed naked out in the middle of a large, wooden table was a heavily muscled man that Megumi vaguely recognized as another member of the Oniwaban. He looked awful, more like an almost living corpse than an almost dead man.

A gentle pressure on her shoulder caused her to stop her assessment. Megumi looked up to find Aoshi staring down at her with eyes that held a slight hint of madness; like a slip of mercury in dark wells. She recognized the look because it was so similar to the one she saw every time she looked in the mirror. She could also guess what he was about to say.

"What do I have to work with?" Megumi asked quietly, but with a hint of her old impatience. An internal clock had started ticking from the moment to the second she had walked in and seen the ninja's injuries.

For an instant, surprise peaked through the Okashira's haggard visage before it disappeared like light behind a shutter. Without any comment, Aoshi reached into his oversized robes to reveal a concealed leather harness running between his shoulders and hips. Moving quickly, he pulled off a fairly large wrap that was also made of leather and set it on the ground, unrolled it, and revealed a collection of gleaming kaikens and tantos of various sizes, several needles and plenty of thread. Another foray into one of Aoshi's voluminous robes produced a more conventional first aid kit containing two scalpels, one larger than the other, a few surgical forceps and clamps, acupuncture needles and what looked like ground shiitake mushroom. Inwardly, Megumi felt her heart sink. The kit Aoshi had managed to grab was far better than anything that could have been hoped for under the circumstances, but they were still a long way from a good clinic.

"Give me your robes, Aoshi," Megumi said as she rolled up her sleeves with slightly trembling fingers. That blasted clock was ticking louder than ever.

Unhesitatingly, Aoshi stripped down to the leather harness and an ill-fitting and disgusting pair of silken long underwear. Megumi took the proffered robes along with one of the nearby kaiken and quickly began to cut the thick fabric into strips while she did a quick, visual assessment of the ninja's injuries.

"Please tell me what happened and what you know of his injuries." Aoshi's companion had hundreds of minor lacerations and several large contusions, but those were of little immediate concern. The darkly oozing wound near to his right armpit appeared to be the most obvious problem. Aoshi's description confirmed it and added more.

"We were ambushed in the bay and had to swim to safety under fire from western-style rifles; probably German mausers. He was hit in the water by several rounds, the most serious of which was a wound to the brachial vein and the lower abdomen. We made it to the shore and where I left him to find a safe haven. I found this and brought him in, where I put a tourniquet on his arm and bandaged his wounds as best I could. That was approximately an hour ago." Aoshi mechanically rattled the terse description off while Megumi hastily checked Aoshi's tourniquet and ripped off the old bandages, by then utterly soaked in blood.

_Not that there's much left in him to bleed out. Kami, his pressure is so low. _

While Megumi examined the newly uncovered abdominal wound in all its bloody glory, she began to instruct Aoshi in what she needed if she were to even have hope for a miracle.

"Listen to me very carefully Aoshi," Megumi instructed while she began applying fresh bandages as quickly as she dared. "First, apply pressure here…yes, that's good," Megumi continued to speak in a rapid, but unhurried tone as she slid her hands out from under Aoshi's as he took over for applying pressure to his subordinate's abdomen.

"The greatest danger was the wound to the brachial vein, however," Megumi stood up precariously on an edge of the improvised operating table and grasped the overhead lamp with both hands, "your tourniquet should keep for several hours," Megumi said as she tried her best to slide the cumbersome light off its hook without stepping on her patient. After removing the lamp, her balance finally gave out and she was forced to hop off the table while her feet were still under her. Megumi's landing was still rough and as she got back up from her knee, she walked with a very slight limp in her ankle. Mentally, she tried to shake herself.

"And, even better, it looks like the bullet managed to get out of the arm and avoid taking anything but tissue with it," Megumi's flat lecture continued on as she removed the glass cover from the lamp and sterilized all of the available instruments, including the kaikens and tantos, as quickly as she dared with the risk of furthering whatever infection had undoubtedly begun.

"However, the problem is now the bullet wounds to his abdomen." Megumi wiped off the black residue from the flame with her improvised cloth and took the lamp and began to climb back on to the table. Probably not wanting his friend to die because the doctor had fallen on his wound or somehow killed herself, Aoshi reached out with one hand and grabbed her by the arm. He pulled Megumi over to his side and placed her hand where his had been.

"I'll get the lamp," he said in a voice that didn't sound like an order, but somehow was.

It took several seconds of mental fumbling for Megumi to figure out the obvious, but eventually she figured out that he was going to put the lamp back up and that she would temporarily switch places with him. The light was swiftly replaced and the two desperate acquaintances resumed their previous roles.

"I'm counting at least one, two, three, entry wounds…pretty distinct…no exit wounds; he'd already be dead, so I'm going to have to go after them." Megumi reached down to the undone leather pouch that served as Aoshi's official field surgery kit set the whole thing beside her on the table. Aoshi moved out of her way and waited until Megumi called for him again. She grabbed the larger scalpel, took a deep breath and made the first incision. Blood from the veins combined with various other internal fluids to form a black ichor that slowly oozed out of the wound. The area around bullet had swollen horribly. As her meticulous incisions slowly probed deeper, Megumi began to notice the first signs of infection: slight lines of redness branching off through otherwise pale flesh and swelling. Her hand started to sweat as she briefly fumbled over whether or not to treat the infections first or go for the bullets.

"Your friend was very lucky, Aoshi," Megumi said as her eyes followed a suspicious looking trail of colored residue and torn tissue, "The cold salt water helped to retard possible infection." Megumi's eyes narrowed as she discovered the first of the bullets smashed up against the base of the tenth through the twelfth rib on the left side of the spine. After packing in some more cloth strips, Megumi reached down with her forceps and pulled the compacted bullet out for Aoshi to see.

"We're getting a lot more of these new bullets these days," Megumi snorted wryly as she automatically began searching for the other bullets. "Amazing how inventive we are about killing each other."

Aoshi didn't bother giving her a response.

Megumi soon found another bullet path. It was actually even more distinct than the first one, but instead of leading straight through the tissues between the organs and then to the bullet, this trail dived downwards a short distance and then disappeared into the guts.

Megumi frowned, her brain sluggishly trying to process the most likely possibilities. The first bullet had missed organs entirely and had been fairly easy to dig out without much damage. The second's path had already punched a small hole through the man's digestive tubing and she didn't see any signs of its ending. She didn't know what to do.

Aoshi noticed her indecisiveness and hovered closer to her, silently demanding an answer. Megumi tried to ignore him and made an indistinct motion that Aoshi somehow correctly took to back up and get out her space. Megumi continued to stare at the unconscious man in front of her, baffled, and utterly hating it. Megumi _knew_ she knew what was needed to be done, but she couldn't for the life of her remember what. Megumi cursed herself for wishing for a small dose of opium, but it would've made it much easier to try and remember her readings on gunshot wounds if she didn't feel the intense withdrawal pains gnawing at her insides. It was only slightly more preferable than the doped up state she'd been in earlier.

Without thought, her eyes roamed up and down the fallen man before her, seeking for something, anything. Suddenly, she saw the vital clue: a horrendous and curiously shaped bruise just south of the man's pubis. Modesty had no place within a doctor unless it comforted the patient so Megumi did not hesitate to examine the man closer, her hand gently probing the wound. After a quick examination, Megumi decided on a calculated risk. Taking up her scalpel again, she began making incisions on the bruised area and began moving up and inward. It wasn't long before metal met metal and she'd extracted the second bullet.

"The second bullet hit your friend at more of a downward angle, Aoshi," Megumi explained while she allowed the projectile she'd just pulled out to full on the table with a soft thud. "Apparently, it hit his right ili-excuse me, hip bone, and followed it before it stopped just sort of exiting down the rear of his body. He probably won't be able to have kids, but if we can stabilize him, I should be able to repair the rest of the damage pretty easily."

Aoshi nodded silently, the invisible tension that had shrouded him since the beginning of their crazy eased slightly. "It's just as well. He always was trouble disciplining around women."

Megumi shook slightly in suppressed laughter as she resumed her search for the third bullet. The stress induced comment had been delivered so flatly and off the cuff that she was sure that Aoshi hadn't intended it as a joke. This, of course, made it all the more funny.

"Perhaps it was karma then, Aoshi," Megumi said as she began the search for what she hoped was the final bullet. Megumi prayed that the man's unfortunate injuries to his manhood would somehow be enough to appease whatever gods controlled his fate. Men always seemed to have a disproportionate amount of concern over the organ. Why not worry about something that could permanently impair your mobility and thus your livelihood, like a shattered kneecap, or third degree burns, which left you constantly vulnerable to infection and in pain for the rest of your life?

_Besides, one doesn't need a sword to please a woman. _

With a slight smirk on her face, Megumi traced the last path. The entry wound was rather jagged and a small chunk of skin was hanging on by the barest of tissues over the upper left portion of his abdominals, several inches below the last rib. The muscles quickly fell before her swift knife, followed by the connective tissues, and just when she began to despair over how deep she was probing, Megumi found the last bullet. It sat nestled comfortably in a small knot of fatty tissue that had swollen to wrap the lethal object in a bloody clump. Anxious to get on with the perilous operation, Megumi made a mistake worthy of the rawest greenhorn: she reached down with the forceps, grabbed the misshapen lump of metal and tugged.

Now, if Megumi had been critically judging the surgical procedures of some other poor, battered and drug addicted doctor, she might have been somewhat forgiving of the mistake in that the operator was no doubt nervous as hell, tired, hungry and suffering from the beginnings of a horrible withdrawal.

Megumi, however, was judging herself and, even more importantly, she was a Takani. And while the Takani clan and their lost daughter might have been compassionate, they never, ever forgave errors in procedure.

So when her temporarily deadened instinct roared back with a crazed vengeance, Megumi's first thought was let out a stream of mental curses so foul that her grandmother probably rolled over in her grave. Twice. Megumi let out a long breath through her nose and closed her eyes, willing her hand to stay absolutely, completely still.

She looked down.

The gob of swollen tissue she'd almost ripped the bullet from had partially torn to reveal the slightly perforated tip of the liver and one of its many small arteries. Megumi bit her lip. Her carelessness forced her to make a decision: work on the immediate area of wound and ignore the steadily mounting blood loss or take the risk of the liver deteriorating and sew the man up. Her hand, once so faultlessly still, was beginning to tremble. Megumi once again found herself without any idea whatsoever of what she was supposed to do.

The bullet twitched again.

_Oh father, if you still watch over your daughter, help her make the right choice._

With the decision made, Megumi pulled.

-))—((-

As Aoshi quickly moved through the early morning crowds that occupied the harbor, he did his best to keep himself hunched over without appearing unnatural. Holding the posture was becoming difficult, but his height was far too noticeable. The wide brimmed straw hat helped, though. Awkwardly, he adjusted the large pack that carried all of the supplies he had appropriated for the surgery. It wasn't heavy, as most of its space was taken up by new winter kimonos, but it was still big and cumbersome. What was really making his life difficult was the large flask of iodine wobbling tenuously on his belt, demanding constant readjustment.

Aoshi resisted the urge to break out into a run once the impromptu refuge came into eyesight. A few more seconds was not worth drawing suspicious eyes to himself, though he begrudged each second he spent walking, Aoshi was soon at the entrance of the abandoned fish processing house. He paused at the door to rap out a code of identification he'd insisted they use out of professional habit and walked in far too soon for signal to have mattered. Professionalism be damned; the last man of the Edo Castle group was lying unconscious on a dirty fish monger's table.

Aoshi had hardly entered the door when he was nearly knocked over by an anxious Megumi.

"Did you get the iodine?" Her countenance was fevered and terribly agitated, bordering subtly on panic. Aoshi's own fear immediately rose up to meet hers. He curtly nodded and did his best to mask his own emotions. The doctor didn't need someone else to egg her on, not when calm would be needed for Shikijou's treatment.

"And the cloths?" He nodded in affirmation while trying to descend the stairs as quickly as his height and load would allow.

"And the water, tell me you have the water?" He had hardly taken the pack off when she was ripping the supplies out of it. Aoshi nearly shouted back at her, but the sight of Shikijou caused his jaw to snap shut at the last moment. Megumi had the thick, winter kimonos he had bought shredded down to ragged strips in seconds. Clean water was set to the side and Megumi immediately began to cut the stitches she had made only hours ago. With so little time having passed, the old incisions reopened immediately.

"What are you doing?" Aoshi roughly demanded while Megumi washed the tissue free of accumulating blood.

"His liver was clipped by a bullet and it became infected. If I don't treat it immediately, he'll die." Aoshi offered no more protests. Instead, he took up a guard position that still allowed him to observe and fought against the feeling of being useless. Megumi meanwhile worked with a frantic precision that amazed even his untrained eye. Obviously, the neural depressants of the opium had finally worn off, if not the painful aftereffects. It returned to the female doctor her appearance of madness that had slowly grown over the months in Kanryuu's manor, only instead of the dazed melancholy that came with utter abandonment of hope, there was the hysteria of one who despairs to lose something precious.

It was just as well that he seemed to be joining her in madness with the helpless waiting. He tried to occupy his thoughts with planning or simple observations as he was wont. While a young man, Aoshi had spent hours simply observing a particular scene in nature or a fine vase. Aoshi's mind was a vast place and he easily lost himself in the trappings of his own psyche. It was how he had functioned since he had first taken upon the mantle of the ninja. Peace. Cool, collected thought. All angles considered; instincts honed to near prophecy. Now it seemed that his greatest weapon was working against him. He could not or would not shut down while his thoughts followed neither rhyme nor reason.

This was how the minutes wore on into hours while Aoshi watched Megumi's bootless struggle. He pondered death, the kinesthetics behind Kenpo and a list of his favorite teas.

"Aoshi..," Megumi had appeared before him suddenly, her exquisite features marred by sunken eyes and gray skin. "…Aoshi, I…he…"

"He is dead," Aoshi tonelessly supplied.

"Yes," her gaze did not meet his own, instead looking beyond some namely object in the room's corner.

Aoshi nodded.

Why she was telling this was beyond him at the moment. He had known fifteen minutes ago by the way Shikijou's breathing had changed. He had confirmed it eight minutes ago as he observed Megumi's desperation.

Aoshi quietly walked over to where Shikijou lay in death and clinically examined his corpse. It was so pale and life less; so unlike the man to whom it had belonged, the very essence of strength and vitality.

"Well fought, old friend." His hand gently closed Shikijou's half-opened eyes. "Tell the others, I apologize for my failure." A kodachi swept out. Megumi gasped. "And that I will meet with them soon."

The kodachi fell, clean and sure. Megumi dry heaved while Aoshi wrapped Shikijou's head in leather as best he could to disguise it as an item from the butchers and then set it gently on the table.

"Monster!" Megumi choked in horror, "What are you doing?!"

Aoshi regarded the woman dispassionately, before he began sorting through their few remaining items and packing them away neatly into his pack. "Kanryuu has known about my survival and how I took you from the manor for at least four hours, possibly five. By now his men are scouring the surrounding area and all of my known haunts."

The remainder of his old comrade's body was deposited in a corner while Aoshi began ripping apart the room's combustibles. Aoshi felt something inside crack a little further when he realized he would fail to provide even one of his men a funeral worthy of his deeds. At least Shikijou's body would not be defiled by an enemy's hand or the beasts of the sea.

"It is also possible that he will have contacted others within his syndicate with a fabricated story in order to obtain their help hunting us," Aoshi further explained as he removed the robes from his disguise and doused them with excess lamp oil. "This position is unsafe. We need to move." The still burning lamp was broken over the dead ninja's body.

"Immediately."

Flames rose up immediately and putrid smoke began filling the room. Aoshi strapped a single kodachi under his shirt and slid a kunai down both boots before he pulled on the hat of straw. Nothing else was worth preserving. When Aoshi was fully satisfied that his weapons would not be noticeable to the casual observer, he grabbed the still stunned Megumi by the arm and pulled her up the staircase.

They exited the old processing room for the last time. Aoshi immediately slid his grip down towards Megumi's hands and pulled her off to the southwest, towards the docks where he knew the smaller fishing vessels berthed. The journey went rather smoothly, all things considered. Megumi was non-responsive; content to let herself be led, she appeared to be in a daze. This almost caused trouble as he was doing his best to play her off as his wife, but thankfully, the random passerby only saw what they wanted to. Aoshi also took the time to bury the head of his friend the best he could. Aoshi prayed that Shikijou's spirit would pass on peacefully into the afterlife rather than linger in torment and vowed to come back and give what was left of his friend a better funeral after Kanryuu was punished. Every second spent on the interim ceremony brought him closer to death, but Aoshi would not bend.

Despite it all, they did eventually reach the safety of a small fishing vessel just returning from the day's work. Aoshi jumped on with Megumi before the boat could even dock, held a kodachi to the man's throat and told him he could either take sail to Kyoto or his corpse could join Hannya's and Beshimi's while Aoshi sailed the vessel himself. This was no idle threat; however, Aoshi preferred that the man cooperate. Aoshi knew enough to take the already underway vessel on a straight line course to Osaka Bay, but someone who actually knew sailing would be able to go out to sea under a false heading and then turn around to Osaka Bay while out of sight, hopefully fooling any observers as to their true destination.

Once there, he could take the doctor and travel along the Yodo and the Katsura rivers until he reached Kyoto. From there, he could reconsolidate, gather intelligence and plot his vengeance against Kanryuu. The arms dealer had destroyed everything Aoshi had lived for. It was only right that he returned the favor.

"Aoshi…Aoshi…" Aoshi blinked owlishly as he ceased the painful, but ultimately necessary replay of events that allowed him to damn his men. He took a deep breath and resisted the urge to scream.

_Gods, it's so painful._

Aoshi looked over towards where the voice had come from and discovered a woman, Megumi he remembered, sitting in meek contrition. Aoshi deliberately stamped down the growing pain and firestorm that was building within his soul. The soothing ice of rationality had to hold a little longer; even it would make the inevitable explosion that much worse.

"Yes?" His voice was as dispassionate as ever while he addressed her.

"Where are we going?" The question was innocent enough, but it profoundly irritated him, made him want to want to wrap his hands around her dainty little neck and smash her head against their ship's gunwales until her teeth rolled around in her mouth like gravel.

That wouldn't do. Aoshi went over human anatomy, but when this inevitably failed, he settled for mentally vivisecting Kanryuu.

"Kyoto," he replied.

The lingering silence returned and Aoshi was fine with that. It let him turn his mind to safer things like the logistics of his upcoming operation against Kanryuu and his musings on just how much he wanted Kanryuu to suffer before he sent the bastard screaming down to hell.

"What will we do there?" Megumi had broken the silence again.

"We're going to an inn run by inactive and retired members of the Oniwaban. You will be free to leave as you please or you may work with them at the inn. I will gather all I can in preparation for my revenge against Kanryuu before I return to Tokyo." Aoshi was about to go check on their unwilling captain when Megumi spoke again. The woman was becoming a nuisance.

"Why haven't you killed me?" Her question was almost an accusation coming from her haggard voice. For the first time since Shikijou died, Aoshi truly looked at the female doctor.

He conceded to himself that it would have been easier to kill her after the surgery had ended. It would have been logical (on the surface) and it would have been a much needed, if temporary balm for the fire that seemed to be slowly consuming his soul. Yet, he had never seriously considered killing her. And as he pondered why he had gone so against logic, Aoshi had an epiphany.

"I have two motives, actually," he stated, his own unrelenting gaze locked with Megumi's own, equally harsh stare. "The first is that there is no reason for me to blame you for Shikijou's death, much as I might like to. It was my own foolish pride that killed him. I had no reasons to believe you would save his life given the conditions within which you worked, though you very nearly did anyway." Admitting that hurt, but he owed it to the spirits of his friends to not shirk from what he had done.

"Furthermore, I don't wish to merely kill Kanryuu because that would be far too good for him." He almost snarled at this, but his controlled nature caused him to clamp down on the foolish display at the last moment.

"I'm going to kill the scheming little bastard with my own two hands and then I'm going to erase every trace that he ever existed: the drugs, the dealers, the buyers, associates and superiors. When I'm done, I will ask a man, 'Do you know Kanryuu Takeda?' and he'll say to me, 'Sir, I don't have a clue who you're talking about.' However, I cannot accomplish this on my own."

Aoshi nodded towards Megumi who now looked simply confused. "Go and live. Train as a doctor. While I erase the ones behind Kanryuu's drug empire, you will help erase its legacy."

Megumi bowed her head and was quiet while Aoshi returned to musing over his plans of blood and vengeance.

"What was his name, Aoshi?" She still wasn't looking at him.

"Hideke Shikijou." Aoshi replied tonelessly, before leaving to go check on the ship's captain. Had he stayed, he might have seen Megumi quietly sobbing.

But it's doubtful he would have cared.

_Mokoto walked over to the second level window in the east wing. Nimble fingers unlocked the metal clasps before anyone noticed his suspicious behavior. _

"_Things're bound to be broken when ya' invite the monsters in to play."_

**Glossary**

**Brachial: **Refers to the arm. Location of one of Shikijou's injuries.

**Edo Castle: **The Emperor's own palace in Edo, what we know now as Tokyo. The Aoshi's Oniwaban group was famous as its defenders.

**Kaiken: **"Short knife." A six-inch knife used by women of the samurai class. One of Aoshi's many knives.

**Kinesthetics/Kinesiology: **Study of human movement; how muscles, nerves and bone all work together to move us.

**Pubis: **Crotch; area around his arse. Where Megumi cuts through to access the second bullet.

**Spider's Web Opium: **A fictional type of opium in Ruroni Kenshin that Megumi created that was many times more addicting than the original substance. It has several similarities with heroin.

**Tanto: **Japanese knife with a cutting edge 8-16in long.

**Tourniquet: **A piece of cloth that is tightened around a bleeding limb until the bleeding stops. What Aoshi uses to stop the brachial bleeding on Shikijou.

**Wakizashi/Kodachi: **A short sword with cutting edges 12-24in in length; usually paired with a katana. The preferred weapon of choice for Aoshi along with Seta Soujiro.

_**A/N**_

_**First off, I want to apologize to my more medically knowledgeable readers for any mistakes I made. Some of them, mostly in regards to names, were intentional as I didn't want to muddle things too much in terminology. Otherwise, I take full responsibility for anything that occurred. **_

_**As for the rest of you who no doubt breezed over the medical BS without understanding half it and caring about even less; rejoice! Next chapter vengeance, plotting and handsome maniacs who brood sexily. Who knows, we might even see Kaoru.**_


	3. Early Execution

**Laws of Creative Bribery**

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-))—((-

**The Null Hypothesis**** by IVIaedhros. **

**Disclaimer: I don't actually own Ruroni Kenshin in case you haven't figured that out by now, though I do own the nameless mooks, henchmen and cronies that I randomly slaughter. **

**BTW, My betas rock my socks. I probably would've just killed everyone off in the first two paragraphs and then written down a big, fat ****FINI****. **

**Seriously.**

-))—((-

_When I'm done, I will ask a man, 'Do you know Kanryuu Takeda?' and he'll say to me, 'Sir, I don't have a clue who you're talking about…'_

Much to his subordinates' puzzlement, Mokoto Kisagara was smiling while he made his final evening inspections of the Takeda manor; an activity known to inspire hatred in the typically mild-mannered man. Additionally, he was whistling. Horribly, _excruciatingly _off key. Perhaps more confusing was the fact that a matsuri tune celebrating the spring sunlight when there had been little but grey skies and icy rain for the past four days.

Mokoto just winked and smiled back at his confused and slightly disturbed subordinates. He wondered how many of them would die tonight.

"Ah well, can't be helped."f

Mokoto walked over to the second level window in the east wing. Nimble fingers unlocked the metal clasps before anyone noticed his suspicious behavior.

"Things're bound to be broken when ya' invite the monsters in to play."

-))—((-

Kanryuu did not often spend time in the manor he had lavished so much of his wealth on. Its purpose had always been a status symbol first, meeting site for high level cliental and syndicate members second, and a home third. After all, he was a very busy man and, lately, a very, very tired man.

"Good evening, sir." A petite, middle-aged woman dressed in the style of western maids opened the carriage door and stood off at a respectful distance while Kanryuu tiredly exited, leather brief case in one hand and silk dinner jacket in the other.

"Good evening, Hinamori-san," Kanryuu replied as several nameless retainers also dressed in the style of formal western servants hurried ahead of them to open the doors and bring his baggage in. "What news?"

"The accounting office in Nagasaki has finished liquidizing your old assets and transferring the remaining funds from the opium operations. There was some difficulty with the Onega warehouse: the transfer had successfully begun, but a rat informed the local authorities. The stockpile was lost-"

"-but our positive image remains." Kanryuu finished, too worn to be overly concerned. That particular storehouse had been relatively small and not worth the headache of placating government officials or nosy members of the public.

"Correct, sir." Hinamori nodded, no doubt glad that Kanryuu had not reacted with his usual indignity. Kanryuu ignored the discourteous thoughts the woman was no doubt hiding and simply trudged on. Hinamori was lucky she was so useful. Besides, his main goal had been to transfer the majority of his drug assets into the (usually) legal realm of international arms sales. This had been accomplished and with the Meiji's desire to modernize the military and compete with the western powers, he was guaranteed to gain massive amounts of wealth and, more importantly, power.

"Is there anything else you desire at the moment, sir?" Hinamori asked when they arrived in the main antechamber. "If you desire to retire early, I have already taken the liberty of placing a small dinner along with the evening's final reports and a clean set of night robes in your room."

"That will be fine," Kanryuu said with a long, suffering sigh as they climbed up the main stairwell to the hallway leading towards his own, private wing. The idea taking a hot bath and then curling up in bed was wonderfully appealing. He'd been in his office since four in the morning and was only now returning at ten at night.

"Very well, sir." Hinamori quickly swept out of the room along with the other servants that had been carrying the few personal belongings he'd brought with him. Kanryuu wasted no additional time and within moments he was blissfully soaking in the massive brass tub of his personal bathroom. And as the blessed steam suffused throughout the air, Kanryuu Takeda was truly able to relax for the first time in months.

The last few months had been…stressful, to say the least. Like all of history's great men, Kanryuu had never been satisfied with his current status quo. Through the years of his rapid ascension up the ranks of the international drug cartel, Kanryuu had relentlessly sought out ways to advance forward and grow. It was this near paranoid restlessness that had enabled and spurred on his meteoric rise. However, Kanryuu had learned the hard way that climbing higher was not always a blessing.

Four years ago, he'd allowed his own brilliance and ambition to shine too brightly. Lions always attract scavengers. Over the period of a mere two months, he, Kanryuu Takeda, the genius that had built his organization from the ground up and brought the people of Tokyo to their knees before him, had nearly been destroyed by a few conniving traitors and temporarily allied rivals. The only thing that had saved him was a series of breathtaking gambles and, though he'd never admit it, dumb luck. The end result was he'd acquired first the Oniwaban and then Megumi Takanai. The former allowed him to physically and mentally dominate his competition while the latter provided immense wealth.

In the end, Kanryuu had emerged stronger than ever. Yet, he wasn't content. Kanryuu wanted to be completely and utterly secure before he moved upwards again and the backstabbing vultures inevitably returned. His ultimate answer to the need for security and stability was the lateral move into arms dealing. It would make it easier than ever to make the government work for him, as they would be his primary customer.

And now it was finally over; the grand move of his syndicate and the creation of West Winds Trading Company.

He was safe.

He was secure.

He would be a king.

Kanryuu took a deep breath and allowed his body to sink bonelessly beneath the steaming water. For a blessed moment, Kanryuu allowed himself to luxuriate in the clear, seething blanket that completely enveloped him and to utterly forget the trouble of the past days. He even opened his eyes and admired the distorted view of the darkly gleaming sidewalls and smooth, ivory ceiling, deliberately ignoring the increasing, but not unpleasant urge to surface for more air. Then once more he closed his eyes. The moment of bliss was over. It was time to go back to reality. Kanryuu released the last of the old air in a sigh of bubbles and took one last look through the distorted view of the water. And up at the dark figure that loomed over him through the water.

Some instinct older than Kanryuu, or even his own fear, sent an electric jolt shooting through his body. Kanryuu flew towards the surface, but he'd barely taken his first gasp when an unyielding hand forced itself over his mouth and shoved him back down against the tub. Hard. If Kanryuu's senses hadn't been consumed with immediate survival, he might have noted how the water swelled the dull ring of brass to the sound a morbid bell, announcing his own execution.

Kanryuu immediately began thrashing about in the tub causing his flailing limbs to slam against the brass siding. The sunken bells' reverberation sounded louder through his underwater casket, tolling in time with the beating of his limbs.

_**Dom **__(Dom) – __**Dom!**_

_**Dom **__(Dom)_

Kanryuu was horrifically aware of the twin sensations of trying to cough up the water he'd swallowed and the need to breathe.

_**Dom **__(Dom) – __**Dom!**_

The drive to cough won out first, but reflex action met the intruder's hand, forcing the water and air back down Kanryuu's windpipe, chocking him again and causing another, more explosive exhalation out through his nostrils.

_**Dom **__(Dom)_

The victory of one instinct broke his control over the second, and as soon as the air left his nostrils he tried to breathe, drowning himself in the very water that had so soothed him.

_**Dom!**_

_**Dom!**_

_**Dom **__(Dom)_

_Dom_

….

-))—((-

_**DONG**_

_**DONG**_

_**DONG**_

When the deep chimes of the manor's ancient grandfather clock heralded the arrival of one o'clock, Mokoto nearly leapt through his office door. He'd spent the last several hours trying to conceal his own anxiety as he waited for Aoshi to arrive. Aoshi's had specifically said that he would begin making his way into the manor at around eleven, with his hands on Kanryuu at one. Mokoto had unerringly met the deadlines the Okashira had set. Despite his laidback manner, Kanryuu's best conventional bodyguard was always, _always_ punctual; especially when he was stabbing someone in the back.

Three weeks ago, Buddha, or whatever-the-hell deity was bored enough with heaven to watch the life of Mokoto Kisagara, had presented him with a serious choice in the form of a letter from one understandably homicidal ninja: he could keep working for Kanryuu and hope he survived Aoshi's inevitable revenge, or he could help Aoshi out and hope that he never became a loose end and that Kanryuu agreed to die quietly (or at least quickly). After much careful consideration, Mokoto picked option 3: help Aoshi grab Kanryuu, let him slap the prissy little fop around a bit and then burst in for the dramatic rescue.

Either way he was dancing on razor blades, but saying no right off the bat was a good way to get your throat slit. There was also the fact that Aoshi had proven damnably hard to kill and when (if) he was caught, there would already be a mess, thus making the historically stingy Kanryuu even less likely to reward him for sticking his neck out. Going along with Aoshi wasn't much better. Mokoto was realistic enough to know he couldn't control the newly minted West Winds Trading Company. So, basically, he'd be out of a job and a possible loose end for said homicidal ninja.

"At least this way I only have t'have split second timing, kill Aoshi before he can say anything against me and keep it from looking too convenient," Mokoto wryly muttered as he walked into the basement room that served as the unofficial barracks for the private army of bodyguards/enforcers/happy thugs based out of the manor. Despite the odds and his general uneasiness at never having _seen_ Aoshi since his apparent return from death, Mokoto was fairly confident he could pull the double betrayal off without a hitch.

"Oi, wake-up slug," Mokoto merrily chirped as he smacked awake the shift commander who had been snoring away in the bed closest to the entrance. True to form, the man woke up pissed and immediately tried to punch him in the face. Mokoto didn't take offence.

"And a good mornin' to you too," Mokoto drawled as he grabbed the man's extended arm and yanked him out of the bed, leaving him sprawled in a heap of sheets on the ground. "There might be an assassin in the building."

"You're shitting me," his subordinate replied, though like any good little drone, he was already in the process of untangling himself from the sheets and reaching for his pants.

"I wish." Mokoto decided to speed up the process by dumping the man's clothes on top of him. "You've got three minutes to get everyone awake and outside before I light a major fire under your ass."

Having said his piece, Mokoto waltzed out as chaos exploded behind him. In a surprisingly small amount of time, he had all of them fully dressed and standing around him in a loose half-circle.

"Listen up boys, I've gotten word that Aoshi Shinamori is still alive and possibly right here, right now." There were a few muffled curses from the half circle around him, but otherwise the men were quiet. "No clue where he is right now, that's assuming he isn't fish food, so I want everyone to fan out through your usual guard areas and just start looking. If you see Aoshi, kill him on sight. Take anyone else prisoner. Be sure to let your buddies from this shift know what's up, 'kay?"

Heads bobbed in the affirmative.

"Righty'O, you four, come with me; rest of you know what to do." Makoto clapped his hands together. "Let's go!"

The men immediately split up and began to head off on their search routes. Within minutes, the entire estate would be covered with guards. Mokoto's confidence grew as he lead his group on a twisting route over the manor grounds that had them searching everywhere from the gardener's shed to the koi pond. It was all a big sham, of course, but it did get them over to the western side of the manor. More importantly, it brought them to the old storage cellar, a massive underground basement that housed the manor's monstrous furnace, its food and wine stores and anything too large to be conveniently stored in the attic. It had only one access, an old, but solid double hatch that opened out upwards from the ground next to the manor wall. The cellar was cool, dark, made entirely of stone and full of spiders. In short, the perfect covert torture chamber, which was exactly why he had suggested it and why Aoshi had agreed on it.

"Check the door," he said, motioning the man in front. Mokoto was already unsheathing his sword as his lead man checked the door. His heart was hammering in his chest as his body for the upcoming struggle. Mokoto would only have a few seconds to rush Aoshi once they opened the door and it would be absolutely crucial that he got everyone moving as soon as possible.

"Door's good," Mokoto's thoughts crashed to a halt faster than a four horse carriage with a rotten wheel, "we should probably move on to the orchard next."

"Wait, what do you _mean_ the door's good?" The fact that the door to the cellar, the place where Aoshi _had to be, _was apparently undisturbed so surprised Mokoto that he completely forgot about his desire to avoid painting himself in any sort of incriminating light.

"Uh…it's locked…"

Mokoto stared at the lock, which was indeed locked quite securely: from the outside. Mokoto always gave a man his dues: Aoshi was superb fighter and the kind of genius that only came along once a century, but not even Aoshi could have locked that cellar from inside itself.

"Sir, sir, we need you to come quickly!" Mokoto spun around to see one of the rookies from the previous shift running towards him, mouth moving a mile a minute.

"_Now what?" _he thought crossly, though he did wonder if might be better off not knowing. Mokoto had been around long enough to know that there were some nights where everything went to hell in a hand basket faster than you could blink. And it was looking like tonight might be one of those nights.

"They're all dead, sir, we need you to hurry! Everyone who's left-" Mokoto grabbed the man before he could build up too much steam: he didn't need the rest of the lemmings to build up too much steam. Quietly, he hoped that his patron deity was still bored enough with heaven to watch over him.

"Slow down there! I'm not going anywhere before I know what's going on." Mokoto paused before proceeding with deliberate slowness, "Who's 'we', who's 'they' and where's everyone else?"

"The servants, they're all dead!" The young man was already running back towards the manor.  
"Come on," he called back, "you have to come quickly!" By this point, Mokoto was in such a state of overwhelmed shock that he followed without question. He and his group fell into step behind the apparent messenger and soon made their way into the manor. They raced through the main doorway and then east, past the conservatory and the kitchens and several other guards who were running around with equally panicked expressions. Mokoto discovered the cause when he arrived in the servant's quarters and found himself standing in fixed horror as he gazed around at the lurid scene surrounding him.

They were dead, every last one of them: from the butlers, to the maids, to the chefs; even that old bat who did nothing more than dust the paintings and scold him for boozing in the house. Each looked so alive and untouched in their unexpectedly permanent slumber that Mokoto could almost believe that they'd just get up and start going through the daily chores. Not one of them had an expression of fear, surprise or any other signs that they had somehow been the object of malicious intent. If anything, they looked almost unnaturally relaxed. Flaccid mouths, drooping eyes, sprawled limbs without a hint of rigor, limp as the abandoned spider webs that dotted the manors trees.

"Well, how did they die?" Mokoto practically roared. His restraint was rapidly evaporating in the heat of the moment.

"I don't know, sir," said one of the other young men who had been standing around looking helpless before Mokoto arrived. Mokoto grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and hauled him in so he was to nose to nose with the little underling. "Well go find out!"

"B-b-but, sir, I…" Mokoto was about to rip the little snot's head off when the thought occurred to him that he probably wasn't helping him very much. Mokoto took a long, deep breath and slowly let it out. He had a huge advantage in numbers. Aoshi was only one man, no matter how freaky.

"Alright, here's the deal boys," Mokoto ran his hand through his hair then carefully schooled himself into a mask of indifference, "I want everyone except for the four who came with me, plus you three," he pointed to the trio standing by the remains of the cook, "to go and lock down the perimeter. No one gets in or out of the manor, got me?" The men were still clearly shaken, but his strategy was paying off. They were definitely calmer and at least they wouldn't be dancing around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.

"While everyone else makes sure this place is tight, I'm going to take my group and search through the different rooms so we can find out whether or not Aoshi is even here." After a few more orders, they scurried out to their places around the estate's walls, no doubt eager to escape the unseen murderer who'd crashed their relatively boring and secure world. Mokoto had other ideas. To his way of thinking, Aoshi wasn't really the main concern anymore. The rogue ninja was most likely already gone with Kanryuu's bloody head securely tucked under his arms. As far as Mokoto was concerned, his number one priority was getting away the hell away from Tokyo with as small a trail as possible and as much loot as he could stuff in his pockets.

So with this in mind, Mokoto ordered his men to start collecting "important documents and personal items that Kanryuu-san ordered us to evacuate in case anything should happen". Mostly, these were banking documents that would allow him to access some of Kanryuu's private funds. He did notice a few other papers were missing, notably several that contained details about the drug syndicate and arms industry. He chalked those off to Aoshi and one more reason why he would retire from anything related to Kanryuu. The rest was just some gold trinkets he let the men hold to keep their minds occupied; less suspicion on him and all that. All that was left was Kanryuu's room and an original Katsushika Hokusai print that he could easily carry out without arousing anything besides their libidos.

Soon enough, Mokoto was swinging open the gold embossed doorway to Kanryuu's private chambers.

"Good evening, Kisagara-san."

_Aoshi...Shinamori!_

Mokoto's mouth unconsciously opened in a silent "O", but no scream came out. Instead, he frantically looked around the shadowed room, trying to find the source of the voice. On the left side of the master bed there was a small desk with a single lamp, which illumined just enough to see Kanryuu. The unfortunate man lay tucked into his bed as if he were asleep, but instead possessing peaceful tranquility or even the unnatural slackness of the servants, Kanryuu's face had been frozen in a rictus of agony and absolute terror while his eyes remained wide open to stare unblinkingly at the ceiling.

The unwitting men piled in behind Mokoto, causing him to stumble forward. "Ah, I see you've brought company," spoke Aoshi's disembodied voice was cracked and harsh as a sickly old man, not all like the suave young man he'd once been. Soon, the whole group was standing frozen in the doorway as owner of the dreaded voice made himself seen. This time, Mokoto did cry out. What began as a halting moan such as a child might make, crescendoed into a raw, throaty scream. Behind him, one of his men bolted while the remaining three added their own cries of despair and terror: Aoshi had returned indeed, but not as one of the living.

The last time Mokoto had seen the Oniwaban's leader, it had been two weeks before Kanryuu's betrayal. The man had been the same as always: tall, immaculate; all fluid grace and impassive beauty with an air of quiet professionalism. The thing that stood before him was none of those things.

It stood just a few steps in the lantern's light, hunched over and wearing tattered brown robes of coarse fabric like sack cloth. Dirty clumps of matted hair hung loosely over the sides of its head, their lusterless black threads mingling with a delicate blue-black tracery of veins that spiraled like poisonous ivy over a saggy, sallow face like a fish's underbelly.

"You've become rather lax on the job in my absence, Kisagara-san," spoke the walking depravity that had once been Aoshi. "Not one guard ever bothered to knock on Kanryuu-san's door since I came for him. That's quite the blunder." The Aoshi-oni's hand caressed the dead man's face in macabre perversion of tender affection. "One man has already paid the price for that."

"W-w-wha-w-ttt, d…" Motoko gasped and then finally managed to speak out, "What do you-do you want?"

"You."

Mokoto felt his heart freeze anew at the thing's words.

The thing raised a crooked finger and pointed to each in turn as it spoke with careful enunciation. "I'm going to drag each and every single one of you back to hell with me. And there is nothing you can do," a pale hand swept out to roughly snatch the lamp from its stand, "to stop it."

And to the everlasting terror of all those who were there that awful night, the Aoshi-oni smashed the burning lamp on to the chest of Kanryuu Takeda. And instead of slowly burning away at the linens covering the doomed man, an immense blaze immediately engulfed the whole bed before continuing on across the floor in a red trail to the walls which it raced up in a consuming inferno, turning the room into one great vision of flame.

"**Now come!"** shrieked the abomination as itsrobes were swept aside to reveal Aoshi's signature kodachi unsheathed, glowing now with a sickly green light. **"Come and join me in hell!"**

These last horrors were too much for them and they immediately turned and fled as the fire seemed to instantly engulf the entire manor in a fiery inferno. And as they burst screaming and wailing out the front door of the ruined manor to collapse the arms of their astonished comrades, their last memories before sweet oblivion took them would be the mad, howling laughter of the damned.

**Glossary**

**Antechamber: **A waiting room or entrance to another, larger room.

**Katsushika Hokusai: **A renowned Japanese shunga (erotic) artist who is particularly famous for the work _The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife_, which besides being a…er, well-drawn piece of ukiyo-e, is also probably the first case of tentacle porn in human history.

**Matsuri:** Festival or holiday

**Oni: **Japanese for demon

**Paraffin: **Another name for kerosene, which is oil that was often used for lamps. It's still in common use today as fuel for heating, cooking and for jets.

_**A/N**_

_**Hope ya'll weren't too disappointed with Kaoru not being introduced yet, but this chapter ended up being a good deal different than what I had originally envisioned it as. I simply reached a natural stopping point in the story. **_

_**I also hope you enjoyed the small bits of horror that I added into this chapter. I'm personally pretty happy with it, especially Kanryuu's murder. Initially I'd wanted to do some protracted torture scene, but this ended up being so much more disturbing. I've always wanted to write some horror pieces and I think some of that desire subconsciously got translated into this fic'. **_


	4. Replotted

**Product Warning: **_Known to induce seizures from fans of Kenshin/Kaoru mush. _

-))—((-

**The Null Hypothesis**** by IVIaedhros. **

**Disclaimer: Mind Asylum and AlsoSprachOdin have had their work cut out for them, let me assure you.**

**ZOMG, someone actually called the number…dude, I so warned them…I'm not even going to bother faking sympathetic pain**

-))—((-

"_Things're bound to be broken when ya' invite the monsters in to play." _

Aoshi very rarely dreamed. Though Aoshi's mind naturally followed a more creative bent, his occupation often demanded that he be what amounted to a human abacus. That he also seldom fretted over what he could not change and daily worked to exhaustion meant that what few journeys his subconscious took were never remembered. So when an angry merchant's voice pulled the sleeping Okashira from a dream while he lay motionless under a small bridge, he was extremely disoriented. For a second, Aoshi simply blinked and looked over the outside world with uncomprehending lantern eyes.

"…ass out of here you worthless scum!"

Aoshi's right hand moved of its own accord and intercepted the man's foot before the wooden geta he wore could do any damage: at best a nasty bruise and a bloody lip, at worst a broken nose. A fast twist to the striking limb further unbalanced the already destabilized man. Aoshi was on top of him in an instant, knees firmly in the man's armpits and weight bearing down on his chest. It was now the merchant, a small, wiry man of about forty dressed in a haori far too ostentatious for his station, who sported the stunned expression as he waited fearfully for Aoshi's cocked fist to snap forward and feed him his own teeth.

"Battousai, Battousai!" The man yelled.

The fist never came.

Aoshi stared at the shrieking man for a moment before standing up roughly and lurching forward with a heavy limp in his right leg, shivering uncontrollably as he did so. His night spent on the muddy ground of the Konan district had not been warm and the whole back half of his robes was soaked and caked in river scum. There was a temptation to speed up and try to warm his heat deprived body, but Aoshi did not move faster than a leisurely walk. It would be unwise to give the impression of guilt by appearing to flee.

Soon, a new voice was filling the air with its cries. Aoshi halted, reluctant, but resigned to deal with the situation as quietly as possible. As the cries grew closer and more articulated, Aoshi consciously allowed a miniscule slackness to enter his posture and expression while turning his side towards the oncoming noise. One hand, the one closest to the man approaching, hung limply in the open while the other was shifted back slightly and its fingers curled in preparation to receive the senbon that lay hidden up the sleeve of his robe. The Law had arrived.

"You there, stop!" A short, but still somewhat lanky police officer sporting a western style mustache and a newly pressed uniform of solid navy blue had emerged from an alley between houses. Upon catching sight of Aoshi, the supposed Battousai, he ran over as fast as his loping stride would carry him and immediately clamped his free hand around Aoshi's arm while the other rested on a saber hilt. Nursing his fatigue and wound as he was, Aoshi found it somewhat difficult to not to lash out at the police officer, especially since he had already complied with the order to stop. However, instead of fighting back, Aoshi took an additional moment to evaluate this newly appeared threat.

The officer was an older man, perhaps in his late thirties, though it was difficult to tell with his complexion prematurely damaged by a life evidently spent outdoors. His breath was somewhat short despite the relatively small distance he had probably traveled, but his grip was strong. Though the man seemed jumpy enough, no doubt due to the accusations of Battousai and assault, there had been had been no command to show his hands or otherwise clear Aoshi before contact had been made. Aoshi surmised the man was once a peasant. The slight twang with which he spoke certainly supported the hypothesis. Perhaps even once a low level footman in the army, though it was unlikely.

He looked nervous, inexperienced.

This would not be difficult.

"Can I _help_ you with anything, sir?" Voice: quiet, but not difficult to be heard. Annoyed and sarcastic, but not directed at the officer himself.

The officer's grip tightened fractionally. The angle changed.

Aoshi's eyes laid a small grid over the man's body. He changed his own angle and evaluated the best way to adjust those lines to bring the man down as fast as possible.

The officer relaxed, his expression becoming a little less wary as the supposed assailant did not try to resist.

Aoshi relaxed as well. The situation was now his to manipulate.

"Why were you attacking that man? Tell me now, before I skin you alive." Aoshi's eyes narrowed imperceptibly at the little worm threatening him, but he did not take offence. If Aoshi played his part correctly, the worms would never know it was a bird they had passed. More importantly, however, Aoshi did not want to leave a trail for the other birds to follow him by. Mentally he thanked the officer's superiors for at least giving the man some sort of description to work with. The situation would have become more complicated if he had actually been suspected as the famous manslayer.

"Hey, listen, I was just napping over by that bridge," Aoshi reached out with his non-weapon hand and gestured broadly over to where he had been resting. "Before _he_," Aoshi angrily jabbed a finger towards the merchant, who was walking over to investigate his almost-assailant, "came and tried to kick me while I was sleeping. See," Aoshi made broad gestures from the bridge to the merchant's street-side vending stand, "he's way over there and I'm over there and then he just comes around to kick me because he says I smell! How can he smell me when-"

"He's loitering against the law, driving away my business! I-"

The officer's expression had become extremely tense and he had just unconsciously wiped his face.

"Quiet, both of you! You," the officer commanded, however, it was useless. The merchant, who had regained his confidence, decided to move up into Aoshi's personal space and speak directly into his face. Aoshi immediately mirrored him. In no time, the merchant was trying to drown out Aoshi through volume alone while Aoshi pulled out every insult upon the merchant's manhood that he could think of. Though Aoshi found the whole affair laughably childish, the tactic was working marvelously.

"Stop it right now, both of you!" The officer had clearly reached his breaking point as he whipped his crude European saber out of its sheath and beat the two with the weapon's pommel guard as an improvised set of brass knuckles. Aoshi was leery of the unsheathed cutting edge, but satisfied that the policeman wouldn't try to slash him. Aoshi took the ineffectual, though bruising strikes without protest. The man looked to be more of a danger to his own health in any event.

"Both of you, _shut up_, or else I'll skin you alive!" The saber point waved threateningly in the air as a warning. "The Battousai is loose nearby and we have to find him, so no more trouble from either of you!" The policeman was already beginning to run off with his saber still waving in his hand, even as he yelled at the two from over his shoulder.

Aoshi and his nameless irritant both watched as the officer quickly disappeared behind a nearby corner, doubtlessly to join his comrades in the search for the supposed Hitokiri Battousai. The moment the officer had left, they both turned to regard the other, one with angry disdain, the other with an intense apathy not at all contrived. The merchant affected a sneer and threatened Aoshi with harm from "his friends" if he didn't clear out immediately, but left for his abandoned stand without further word. Perhaps he had deduced that he no longer held the advantage in their pointless contest of gamesmanship. Aoshi didn't care. He was free to continue on unnoticed.

This was crucial. Aoshi's mobility was impaired by a badly rolled ankle and he could not afford additional delays with Kanryuu's associates out for his blood. It was likely that two or three among the policemen currently swarming the area for the Battousai were also secretly under orders by the drug lords to find him.

Aoshi hissed in pain as he turned a corner and found the newly stretched ligaments in his ankle rolling again on a pathetically small bit of gravel in the road. The abrupt shock of pain initiated a fit of nausea that had been building in his gut since he'd first awakened on this wet and cheerless day. A fresh wave of shivering followed and Aoshi grimly noted how the air had changed; becoming lighter, cleaner and faster. It was going to rain again.

Mouth compressed into a firm, thin line like a barricade against discomfort and weakness, he walked on.

His grand vengeance against Kanryuu had been flawless. After depositing a strangely subdued Megumi Takani near the Kiyoto Oniwaban's headquarters at the Aoiya, Aoshi had immediately left for another part of town and began calling in a few key debtors. He wasn't long in Kiyoto. Aoshi had no wish to see anyone from the Kiyoto cell and they had doubtlessly searched for him once the former doctor was questioned. Aoshi then moved directly into Kanryuu's home territory, a scant three kilometers from the manor. The remaining month was spent in observation of both his target and all those who regularly visited the manor. Two weeks ago, in the final days of a bitter March, he had moved. The night prior to the death of Kanryuu was spent waiting for a bribed servant to saw open five key heating gas mains in the basement of the manor. The pipes were lead based and yielded easily under a hack saw purchased in the same shipping district of the deadly ambush that had almost killed him. The night prior, Aoshi had stolen a key to the basement. Once inside, it was a mere five minutes work to saw open several minor heating gas pipes. It wasn't long before highly flammable gas circulated throughout the walls of the manor. Kisagara Motoko had then provided an easy way in with his control over the patrol schedules, but more importantly, he unwittingly gave Aoshi mastery over his audience.

And what a show he had given them. The men who had meant to capture Aoshi had instead watched in rapt horror as the avenging demon from hell arrived and apparently stole away with the body of his betrayer in a storm of fire. In reality, Aoshi had simply made careful use of make-up to create for himself a visage truly worthy of nightmares. Layers of whitish/grey powder and black ink had given him his pallid, lumpish complexion and tracery of poisoned veins while the thinnest layer of wax added the desired sheen. The last touch had been extremely viscous oil containing trace amounts of copper. Brushed liberally over his kodachi and ignited, it gave the appearance of sickly green light. The end effect had been garish and over-dramatic, but well suited to the darkness and confusion of Kanryuu's room.

Yes, it had all been flawless, except for his own stupidity: to escape the burning manor, Aoshi had planned on taking the only route available to him: the window. As a ninja, he had leapt from countless heights greater than the second story of the Takeda manor, yet here his own ingenuity had come back to bite him. The gas-fed flames had spread even faster than he had anticipated and wreathed the chosen exit window in fire. Before he might have even paused to think about taking another window, Aoshi had cleared the burning window frame in a rushing leap. However, instead of an easy landing in grass that he had already seen swept clean of large debris, Aoshi had gone further and hit the roots of a nearby tree perhaps five feet from the wall. The Okashira had come flying down onto the sides of the roots and immediately twisted the ankle on his right foot. His instinctive roll forward had saved him a much more crippling injury even if it had still left him battered and bruised.

After two kilometers Aoshi turned westward. He was about to duck into one of the many cramped alleyways when two harsh commands whipped over his back.

"You there, stop, stop right now!"

"Hands where we can see them!"

Aoshi stiffened in reflex, caught in momentary disbelief that the police would choose to interrogate him again only moments after the first incident. However, the police were not interested in Aoshi, which he discovered as soon as he turned around-

"I'm sorry, but what have I done? I've done nothing wrong, that I most certainly have not."

-and came as close as he ever did to gaping like a fool.

"Kid," and this was truly laughable to Aoshi, "you're either gutsier'n hell or you're the stupidest guy I've ever met, and that's saying something." Aoshi found that he was too dumbstruck to move on, wiser though that choice might be, for there in front of him was Kenshin Himura, the true Manslayer and hero of the Mejii Revolution. Aoshi recognized him instantly from profile sketches the Oniwaban kept. Though he wore the bumbling manner and idiotic apparel like a cloak, the man said to be an invincible demon made flesh had hardly changed from the blood bathed nights of the revolution.

"And I'm seriously leaning towards the second given that not only is the legendary manslayer Hitokiri Battousai back from wherever he was hiding, but _you're_ walking around with a bloody samurai sword when they've been outlawed by the Meiji for years." Aoshi watched as one officer grabbed Kenshin by the collar while the other snatched away the lone sword that hung by his side. Expecting violence, Aoshi moved himself fully into the shadows and continued his observations.

"What's this?" The second officer asked in disbelief as he unsheathed a truly strange blade: a sakabato; a katana with the cutting edge on the reverse side. "Wahaha, what do you think you're going to do with this thing, boy? Gonna try and club your opponent to death before he sticks you?"

"AhHhHh, no sir, that I would not," Kenshin replied as he comically flailed his arms in an attempt to grab his sword which the young officer had taken to holding above his head. "But please, give it back. It has great sentimental value."

"Sorry kid, but rules are rules," the first officer replied as he wrenched the struggling man away from his partner, "We're confiscating this weapon and taking you into custody until this whole Battousai thing blows over and we know what to do with you."

The change was so quick that even Aoshi almost didn't see it until it had already happened. The flame haired assassin's face lost all hint of comical panic, and the deceptive strength that had been hidden from all but those with the eyes to see it was unleashed. Himura took one small step behind and inside the stance of the officer holding him by the collar and _moved_.

One of the officers let out a sort of high pitched yelp as the two found themselves ingloriously deposited on their backsides sans one Battousai and sakabato.

"I'm truly sorry, that I am!" Kenshin warbled as he made his escape. "But I really must be leaving right now!" Egos bruised, but determination still firmly intact, the two officers took off at a sprint, dead set on capturing the fleeing redhead.

"Uwaaah, you think can get away from us?!"

"Just you wait until we catch you!"

The trio soon disappeared behind a corner in a massive cloud of dust.

Aoshi hobbled off in the opposing direction, head still shaking at the irony of life. Obviously the description given out to the police was…faulty.

_Or perhaps they simply cannot see what they will not believe. _

Two hours past with Aoshi plodded along the muddy alleyways and streets, first west, then southwest. Aoshi wondered just how many worms had been fooled by that particular bird's act. It had been truly wonderful: the manner and the clothes perfectly complimented the assassin's preposterously youthful features to create an impression that was both affable and disarming.

And yet, as Aoshi passed by a curiously deserted strip of open-air food stalls, he couldn't help but wonder if what he had seen was indeed an act. It had almost been too perfect, too natural in a way that surpassed even his practiced façade, technically proficient as it had been. The image of the reverse blade sword floated clearly into his mind.

Suddenly the wind changed and the sky loosed itself in like a slow, cold waterfall.

That irritating shivering Aoshi had noted in passing upon being woken up returned with redoubled vigor while his clothes managed to defy all known laws of mass and volume by soaking up yet more water. The world and his sense of time faded as Aoshi's consciousness narrowed to putting one foot in front of the other, one after the other, after the other, after the other.

_omahae_

So focused was he on driving through his physical weakness and maintaining his direction and speed that Aoshi almost missed the worn red paint that signified he had arrived in the Tomahae district. Maps and impressions of half-remembered travels scrolled through his mind while Aoshi took a moment to ascertain his exact position. He'd begun the day's journey approximately three hours ago, four and half kilometers east and northeast. This would put him at the northern edge of the Tomahae district...only a few hours east from Shoto, the first of the eta or outcast districts.

Kanryuu's documents had pinpointed several key members of the syndicate to be in that district.

The pain and weariness fell off of Aoshi as surely as if he had stripped off his soaking clothes, and even as the rain seemed to poor harder, Aoshi felt the muted, effervescent thrill of knowing beyond all uncertainty that he would never stop.

_I'm coming…_

-))—((-

Kaoru's breath sounded like a pair of billows a smith was working far too fast. She was a highly accomplished kendoist, yes, but you only moved in short bursts for a kendo match.

**Splash**

**Splash **

**Splash**

The ground was really muddy. Kaoru had chosen not to wear her old pair of getas in favor of speed, but as she ran and the rain showed no signs of letting up, Kaoru wondered if that might have been a bad idea. Her stockings were completely ruined and though she hadn't fallen, Kaoru had already slipped twice.

"That..side stitch…is…really starting..t'hurt," Kaoru gasped out as she slowed involuntarily.

_No, come on. You need to get going faster! _

Shaking her head in frustration, Kaoru took off at full speed again. If the Battousai wasn't stopped, the dojo would die and so would the Kamiya Kasshin, her father's legacy. And Kaoru would be damned if she was going to lose this last piece of her family's pride. So she kept running, kept going despite the fact that her legs felt like a bunch of little sword smiths were pounding them with their hammers. She kept going, but never saw any sign of the Battousai, or any people at all for that matter.

Despair filled her at the thought of running around aimlessly. She had thought she had knew where to find him when she'd taken off from the dojo, but now, it was starting to look like she'd been very, very wrong. Kaoru was almost ready to turn back towards the dojo and start again when she noticed a tall, dark haired man slowly making his way through the rain. Willing herself to go faster just one more time (yea, right…just one more time?), Kaoru caught up to the stranger just as he passed under a big tree in the middle of a large street intersection.

"Sir," Kaoru tried to yell, "pl-…" Kaoru skidded to a halt right next to the tall man who had kept walking; either having missed her yell or choosing to ignore it. Kaoru nearly fell over as she lost her footing on the slick layer of fallen leaves that blanketed the ground, instinctually reached out and grabbed the man by the arm. He quickly stabilized himself, but as he tried to pull away from Kaoru, who's weight he was still partially supporting, he gave a sharp grunt before they collapsed together on a carpet of wet leaves.

"Sir…" Still thoroughly winded, Kaoru took a deep breath. "Sir, I'm really, _really_ sorry-"

"It's nothing," he tried to reply, but Kaoru was already up and grabbing him by his right arm, nearer to the wrist, so that she might pull him up. And as she did so, she felt it: the distinct shape of a long-blade tanto concealed beneath the sleeve. Instantly alert, but still startled from the fall and the sudden change in the situation; Kaoru kept pulling.

"I said, it's nothing," the man said before jerking himself up so he could prop himself against the tree. By then, the fact that this man was carrying an illegal weapon had fully registered in her brain. Still, she didn't quite know what to do with him so she decided to keep it cool for the moment.

"Are you sure you're alright? I hope I didn't hurt your foot," Kaoru said, nodding towards the limb he kept off the ground while leaning against the thick tree trunk.

"Oh, no, don't worry about it," the man said with a casual wave of the hand, pronouncing that it was only a minor injury that he'd already had. Kaoru believed him on that point at least: she remembered how slow he'd been walking and how he'd collapsed as soon as he'd tried to push off with the foot in question.

"Ah…well, I'm really sorry…er?" She wasn't sure how she was going to continue this.

"You were going to say something to me?" The man asked, helpfully.

Kaoru stared at him for a moment, hurriedly searching for an excuse to be questioning him about the Battousai. For some reason, perhaps the awkwardness or possible danger of the circumstance, it seemed important to have one.

"Have you seen the Battousai?" Oh well, so much for being indirect about it. "He's tall: as tall two men and as strong as twenty. He's dressed in all black and carries a huge katana."

The man stared at her inquisitively. "Have you seen this man?" he asked.

"That's what I was asking you," Kaoru replied as she pushed several wet tendrils of hair that had fallen over her eyes out of the way.

"No, I haven't seen him," the man responded as he began to stand up and take his weight fully off the tree trunk.

"Oh…" Kaoru was running out of options.

"I'm sorry," he began, "but I really must-"

"Do you work for him?" Kaoru blurted out, desperate not to lose her only lead and perhaps hope to save her dojo and the Kamiya legacy.

"Who?" The man asked her with a slight tilt to the head.

"The Battousai," Kaoru answered.

"No." The man kept staring at her, looking for all the world like any normal person would after being assaulted by a crazed woman in the rain, except normal people don't carry around illegal weapons in their robes; normal people didn't hide fourteen inch tantos up their sleeves. Normal people didn't send chills down her back just by acting friendly.

"Well," Kaoru said as she began walking along the edges of the tree's roots, paralleling the stranger across from her, "it's just that there're all these men in town who are working with him and no one else is out and- WHOA!" The fall was very convincing, probably because it wasn't entirely faked.

Kaoru found herself steadied before she'd begun to really fall. Fearlessly, she held her head up to look her "rescuer" in the eye before quietly saying, "-you have really good reflexes and a knife that's pretty far from legal."

"And what of it?" the man asked in turn, his voice also low, so low it was nearly lost in the rain. "These are dangerous times." Now so close, Kaoru could make out the details she had once missed with the haze of distance and the torrential downpour. The man, who seemed to positively tower over her, was wearing a loose, formless set of nondescript brown robes and a light haori that had definitely seen better days. Shortly cut hair of lightless ebony highlighted a pale, angular face splashed with the unnatural color of a fever while shadowed auburn eyes betrayed fatigue. His expression, which had fallen into a blank slate at her accusation, now had shifted back to the somewhat earnest, moderately puzzled and concerned look he'd worn when he had first helped her up. That particular feeling of being cold that had absolutely nothing to do with the rain got a little stronger.

"Not all of us are so skilled that we can defend ourselves and our families with nothing more than a bokken." The man gave her a light grin as he nodded towards the wooden sword that Kaoru had strapped on her left side. His expression changed again, becoming more somber. "I may have been fortunate enough to have never met the Battousai, but 'age of peace and prosperity' or no, my sister and I were almost killed by yakuza a year ago," his eyes narrowed slightly before he continued. "My neighbor was not so lucky." The man held out his right arm plainly in Kaoru's sight so she could watch as he pulled out the tanto out somewhat. It was a standard concealed weapon with the entire blade, sheath and grip disguised as an overlarge dowling rod and no cross guard to speak of. The blade glittered as the gathering raindrops bent the steel blade's reflected light. It was extremely well maintained.

"I was a soldier for the Revolution, long ago. I may be a simple trader now, but that doesn't mean I'll just let myself be killed by some young punk who managed to escape the Mejii's sword ban, which as you've seen, is extremely easy to do."

Kaoru listened carefully to the man's explanation and felt the heat rising in her face at what she'd just done. She was embarrassed, heck; mortified that she'd nearly attacked an innocent man. As it was, she'd still managed to make him fall down once, almost twice, and she'd probably hurt his ankle even more, and that was assuming he wasn't being polite and just making up the whole, "I'm already injured" bit. She'd definitely goofed up on this one…but still…that feeling...

"I am truly sorry, sir," Kaoru apologized formally as she bowed toward the man in deep supplication. "Please, forgive my rudeness."

"Really, there's no need," replied the man as he made to start walking again.

"Are you going home sir?" Kaoru asked, praying to Kami that she wasn't dragging this out too long. The man seemed very patient though, especially considering how long they'd been standing in the soaking rain.

"No, I am here for several weeks on business and I'm staying at one of the nearby inns." Kaoru's thoughts were flying a mile a minute and she could practically feel some of them falling off even as a whole slew of new ideas and thoughts came to her. She crossed her fingers and hoped he wasn't really from around here.

"Oh, so you're staying at the _7__th__ Heaven_? That's pretty famous. I always wanted to stay there."

"Yes," the man replied, impatience finally beginning to show, "I've been there two nights. Now, if you'll please excuse me…" Shoving off from the tree that had supported him, he haltingly began to walk away from the tree and towards the nearby alleyways.

"The _7__th__ Heaven_ burned down a week ago."

The man shrugged without any pause in his step.

"Ah, I must have been mistaken then."

Kaoru watched as the man slowly began to dissolve into the rain, her muscles tense and her heart racing. Practiced hands unhooked the bokken from the belt around her robes. If she wasn't right…

"Stop, Battousai!"

Both of them stiffened and turned towards the source of the noise in time to see an immense masked and black clad figure burst out from behind one of the buildings and into the intersection, a pack of armed officers chasing at his heels.

"Get him, get him! Don't let him get away!"

'Go around the s-**AH!**"

The officer's blood curdling cries persisted even after the man was effortlessly felled by the towering manslayer.

"I am the Hittokiri Battousai!" the black clad manslayer shouted as his sword scythed through another set of officers. "All who face me: DIE!" The killer stopped running and nearly fell over just as Kaoru had done, but managed to regain his balance. He then planted himself in the middle of the street, rounding on his pursuers like a feral wolf squaring off against the farm boys that had robbed it of its meal.

With the suspicious stranger completely forgotten, Kaoru stood rooted under the tree for a moment of complete paralysis, cowering under the terror of the manslayer. However, as the bloodstained sword fell again on another officer, an electric jolt seemed to race through her. Kaoru truly felt the hot acid of anger and battle rage for the first time in her life. Raising her own weapon to her side, the last heir of the Kamiya Kasshin rushed forward into battle.

"Battousai, prepare yourself!" Kaoru cried in challenge as she flew towards the carnage with her trusty bokken off to her side, heedless of the stinging raindrops that splattered against her face. Her shout somehow carried above the rain and the battle prompting the manslayer to look upon her in open astonishment even as the last of the policemen fled.

With adrenaline fueling her movements and fully recovered from running after the long conversation, Kaoru made it over to the fight in seconds in order to leap over the fallen officers and attack the Battousai directly, all in the motion. The killer's over-confident strike against her head whistled inches over her even as Kaoru's own attack crashed into the vulnerable knee cap.

With a pained cry, the manslayer's knee bent and dropped, almost touching the ground. Kaoru executed a faultless spin, this time aided by the wet earth, and sliced horizontally at the murderer's face, intent on breaking his jaw, his nose, or both. Instead, the wooden blade collided with his right hand even as he raised it to protect himself. The resulting impact numbed her own hands even as the telltale **crackle **of broken bones and torn ligaments told of the blow's damage. However, this did not seem to slow the huge man at all and neither did it force him to drop his sword; instead, it seemed to simply enrage him.

"Already been done once!" He screamed before unleashing a wild, downwardly arching swing against her defense. Kaoru blocked quickly and near to the hilt so as to break his momentum. However, the injured hitokiri's rage was such that the blow had enough power through the hardened wood of her bokken and burry itself messily in the top of her right shoulder near her neck.

Letting loose a vicious snarl, the manslayer smashed the back of his injured right fist into her nose, instantly breaking it and throwing Kaoru to her back in a haze of tears and pain.

"Oh-ho, I've waited so _long!_ "He yelled, even as he punched her square in the face.

Whatever else the murderer said was lost to Kaoru as the Battousai cruelly beat her with the pommel of his katana, first her temples then her face. An explosion of stars and pressure accompanied each blow to the head. The heir to the Kamiya Kasshin style thought her head might have broken with that final blow. Remarkably, Kaoru managed to avoid completely blacking out, instead grudgingly fighting for her hold on reality as if she would not allow herself to become completely helpless before her opponent, no matter how useless the gesture might be.

And as the Battousai flipped his katana upwards into a killing position, it did indeed look useless.

At least, until a tanto suddenly sprouted as if by black magic from the side of the killer's arm.

-))—((-

Kaoru's first conscious thought upon waking up was to wonder why she couldn't see. Her next thoughts in order were one:_ "I'm an idiot. My eyes are closed_," two: _"Why does my head feel like a smith is trying to beat it in with a very large hammer?"_

After several half-hearted attempts, Kaoru managed to pry her eyes open. Her vision did not immediately come into focus, rather it was more like a sailor who would squint into the fog as it slowly faded away to reveal the appearing shore.

"Good evening, or should I say good morning; I suppose it's all subjective."

Kaoru's vision at last focused enough to where she could barely discern the faint shapes of her room. Almost immediately, she wished her vision hadn't returned: the muted orange and red light streaming in through her window seemed blinding to her. Kaoru became unhappily aware just how badly her head hurt. And that her mouth was literally tied shut with a piece of silk and hurt like hell.

"_Father always threatened to do this to me, but I never figured it would actually happen."_

The slightest movement sent a horrendously painful jolt running through her skull that made any thought outside of cursing impossible. After several long moments where she did nothing but concentrate on breathing deeply and not moving, Kaoru managed to work up the energy to investigate whoever her caretaker was. With infinite care, the injured young woman turned her head over to the side so that she was able to clearly make out who was next to her.

Comfortably kneeling in seiza was a tall man, lean though not what Kaoru might describe as gangly. His pale, angular face was framed by soft, ebon hair that appeared to have once been cut in a western style. With a shy and somewhat bemused smile he returned her silent inspection through brown eyes so dark that they seemed almost black. She knew this man somehow and it was not reassuring her.

"I'm glad to see you awake. Tell me, what day of the week it is: the first, the fourth…" The unknown man made a motion with his hand to signify continuing on. Puzzled, but still too disoriented to go against him, Kaoru tentatively held up her own hand with four fingers.

"Ah, good, I'm glad you're able to get that at least: you had us worried for a little bit." The man paused in what Kaoru thought was an exaggerated manner before he asked if she might be comfortable sitting up and taking some broth. Kaoru winced at the thought of having to move her jaw even the slightest, but she was extremely hungry and thirsty. Nodding carefully so she didn't jar her poor brain even more, Kaoru watched as the stranger departed. The time waiting for his return was spent trying to slog through the haze of her memories with no apparent success. It didn't take long before the man had returned.

"Here, try this," the man said as he offered her one of the bath spongers. Kaoru glanced first at the sponge then at the bowl of warm broth he held in the other hand, completely confused. The man noted her confusion. "You have to suck the broth from the sponge," he instructed. Suddenly, his expression became positively evil. "You know, kinda like a squid kiss."

Kaoru chocked/gagged in mortal embarrassment as the stranger burst into laughter. She could feel herself turning red. "What?" the man asked her with an irreverent smile before going along like an arithmetic teacher, "It is an excellent illustration of the action required to drink from a sponge."

Kaoru was thoroughly unimpressed by his logic and let him know the exact extent of her by pinning him with a glare that would have reduced even the Battousai into a quivering pile of mush. Her anonymous caretaker, however, seemed to delight in potentially lethal situations.

"I bet you even have a few…visual aids around here."

"**Nmmmnnnnn!!" **Kaoru couldn't remember being so mortified in her life. It wasn't just that she'd been accused of having knowledge of perverted acts (which she did, courtesy her only friend, Tae Sekihara) and owning fish porn (she'd only _skimmed _it, briefly) or that it was an unknown, annoying and irritatingly handsome man (who was _still _laughing) making said accusations. It was all of them together and somehow that it made everything worse.

Eventually the laughter faded and the stranger's expression became serious again. "I'm sorry if I've offended you. I tend to joke around when I don't know what to do…" A slight look of embarrassment crossed his face before he continued on in an earnest tone.

"Trust me," he said as he held the sponge back up to her lips, "you'll get at least half of your meal on your lap if you try and drink it." When Kaoru still remained unresponsive, he jiggled it slightly in front of her, as if to tempt a child with its vegetables, his smile growing regaining its old luminosity. "And I'm pretty sure you don't want to open your mouth more than necessary."

Kaoru frowned, still hesitant. The perverted attitude might be gone, but they were still dirtying one of her precious and annoyingly expensive sponges. Kaoru adored her baths and anything that went with the bathing experience was deemed sacrosanct.

"_Oh well, I guess it can always be washed out later." _Reluctance successfully set aside, Kaoru slowly propped herself up against the nearby wall and took the proffered bowl and sponge. The man, whose presence still spooked her because of the complete blank he occupied in her memories, thankfully avoided looking at her. Instead, he picked up a nearby scroll of paper and began to write in a slow, but steady hand.

Meanwhile, Kaoru's grudging acceptance was soon forgotten as she hesitantly took the sponge sucked the lightly flavored water out as best she could. Besides being absolutely famished and dehydrated, even the simple act of trying to suck soup broth out of sponge had her nearly screaming with the pain in her jaw. Kaoru didn't even want to think about trying to drink from a cup or bowl, much less eat solid food with the proper utensils.

And yet, as the minutes crawled on, Kaoru felt as if something very slimy and still very much alive was slowly waking up in the middle of her gut. Because halfway through her third sip, she'd begun to remember…

"_Oh, so you're staying at the 7__th__ Heaven? That's pretty famous. I always wanted to stay there."_

"_Yes, I've been there two nights. Now, if you'll please excuse me…" _

"_The 7__th__ Heaven burned down a week ago." _

The details of that rainy day were hazy in her mind. Portions of it were blotted and smeared into one another in confusing jumbles, like inked paper left under leaking roof. Other moments were disturbingly blank while fewer were preserved in full clarity. The only two scenes that were so crystalline were the memories of her walking out of the dojo with fire in her veins, bent on bringing the manslayer to justice and saving her father's legacy and that brief exchange between herself and the man before her. Kaoru knew that she had not trusted him, first because she had mistaken him as the Battousai and then because of the evasion she had somehow sensed in him.

_Battousai, prepare yourself!_

And then a giant blank slate of absolute nothing and damn it all if that wasn't frustrating.

Kaoru was in the middle dipping the sponge back into the much diminished bowl when the rhythmic padding of footsteps alerted her that there someone else in her dojo. Kaoru's undetermined apprehension immediately vanished when the shoji doors slid open to reveal stocky, aged frame of Dr. Gensai.

"Dr. Gensai!" she called out, though really it came out more like "Drrdnndsnss!' what with her mouth being tied shut and all. The inability to speak was frustrating as was the pain that went along with the attempt, but it was all shoved aside in her delight at seeing the grandfatherly old man again. Dr. Gensai hovered over her for a while, clucking his tongue as he asked her repeated questions about how she felt and whether or not she was comfortable. Dr. Genzai was just finishing up when Ayame and Suzumi burst in. Ten minutes of their questions and teasing was more than enough to wear her out and Dr. Genzai soon had to usher the two girls out. When he returned, he was muttering a long stream of exasperations about youth, his weathered face lit by the evening glow and a wide smile.

"So Kaoru, I take it you've met Mr. Minoru." Kaoru nodded slowly, taking in the name.

"Ah, pardon my lack of manners," Minoru cut in with a conciliatory air, "I never did get around to telling you my name. I'm Minoru Yoshiro, a rice trader from Hiroshima." Yoshiro then handed her several blank sheets of paper from the booklet he'd been writing in along with a calligraphy brush. "I'm sorry that we couldn't meet under better circumstances. I was very impressed by your fight with the Battousai. My little sister Misao dreams about becoming a fighter every day. I bet she'd think you were the greatest thing ever."

Kaoru smiled as best she could at the compliment with only her face, but the action felt stretched and artificial. Then again, she never was a good actor.

"Hoho, Kaoru's always been a fiery one. I remember her father dragging her in by the ear into my clinic because she'd been roughing up the older boys. 'Disgracing the name' he'd call it, though he'd always laugh about it when you weren't around." Gensai affectionately patted Kaoru near her calf. "He wanted you to grow up to be a proper lady you know."

Minoru laughed before adding to Dr. Genzai in low undertones, "And just look at how she turned out now."

Kaoru growled. She hadn't even gotten over the injuries from her potentially lethal confrontation with the legendary Battousai and the men were tag-teaming her. Life was so unfair.

While the two males laughed it out at her expense, Kaoru made use of the given writing materials to ask the question that had been burning in the back of her mind ever since she'd first awakened and begun to remember the events of the past days. Kaoru hastily painted on the characters and held up the scroll for the men to see.

_What happened yesterday?_

Dr. Gensai immediately lost his good cheer while Minoru became somber at the recollection of the previous day. The two turned to one another and shared a look. Kaoru didn't know what she was supposed to feel about how comfortable Dr. Gensai seemed to be around Minoru.

"I suppose it would be best if I can tell it, though you two feel free to chime in if you remember anything I miss." Gensai nodded his assent and Kaoru set aside the scroll and brush and focused in on listening to the young man. She wanted to be sure that she caught any inconsistencies.

"I had just finished closing a deal in the market district with East Side Imports company and was looking for the inn I was staying at when …"

-))—((-

Kaoru was beyond tired. Minoru's recollections had lasted almost an hour and she had insisted on scribbling out repeated questions. What were the names of the people he was going to visit, oh, but doesn't your family miss you? About those cousins…? Kaoru had never thought of herself as a very shrewd woman. She left that for the tittering maids in the market place, the ones who mocked her for her physical profession, muscular build and lack of a husband. But right now, as Kaoru looked back on her efforts to give her apparent a cross-examination on the sly, she found herself wishing she had a little bit more in the way of womanly wiles.

Minoru's story had held up perfectly. That didn't reassure her at all though because as she replayed the conversation in her tired, scrambled head, all of her attempts seemed far too obvious, too clumsy. How could he not side-step them? And that look he'd given her...

Kaoru something uncomfortable, probably guilt, squirm in her stomach. Conspiracy theories and gossip rumors always explained everything. The problem with them was you had to change something that was fundamental to the truth in order to make them work.

Kaoru shook her head in frustration and tried for the hundredth millionth time to go to sleep. She was tired, so tired, but the late evening sun seemed like it was determined to piss her off and stay exactly where it had been. The monotony was so bad that she almost missed the door sliding open as Minoru limped in.

"Miss Kamiya," he greeted her courteously with a slight bow before kneeling beside her bed, "it's good to see you still awake." Minoru's ankle had obviously improved little, but otherwise he looked a great deal better than her last memory of him. The merchant washed his worn robes and bathed. It even looked as if he might have trimmed his hair.

"Dr. Gensai is off shopping at the moment for some tofu, but he'll back soon. Once he is, I'll be leaving myself to return to my inn." A tiny, almost embarrassed smile appeared on his lips. It made him appear like a little boy for a moment and Kaoru found the image hopelessly endearing. "After Dr. Gensai treated you, I got a little…bored." Minoru shrugged helplessly and his sheepish grin became somewhat larger. "I'm something of a closet workaholic so I took the liberty of cleaning your dojo and preparing some simple stews which you may heat up later. You should be able to eat them with little trouble."

Kaoru felt that guilt (it was definitely guilt) squirm just a little bit more and she bit her lip. Suddenly, an idea came to her. Feeling better than she had in recent memory, which admittedly wasn't much because of the concussion, Kaoru managed to push herself upright before grabbing the nearby brush and writing out a hasty message.

_Stay here_

Minoru looked very surprised by the suggestion. Hastily he waved her off. He was obviously struggling to not offend her, but Kaoru would have none of it.

_Much cheaper here-just help cook and clean-leave whenever you want_

This time, Minoru did not protest. Curiously, he just stared through her, lost in his own thought.

"Yes…it might work."

When he looked back up at her, that shy smile still on his lips and a gleam in those incomprehensibly dark eyes, Kaoru couldn't help but smile back.

_Fini_

**Glossary**

**Bokken: **A practice sword carved from solid wood or bamboo. The bokken, unlike a **shinai**, is shaped exactly like a real sword and will not shatter as easily as the less solid shinai. On a note towards the battle, though steel is preferred for obvious reasons, wood can indeed be hard enough to with stand direct blows from objects such as a katana. For those of you bored enough to look it up, the American Revolutionary War vessel, the USS Constitution, aka "Old Iron Sides", repeatedly shrugged off British cannonballs despite being only wood.

**Eta: **Used to refer to the districts where those deemed undesirable and unfit for mixing with society at large were sent.

**Geta: **Traditional Japanese footwear: sort of flat wooden sandal with an elevated base to help with travel in muddy ground.

**Haori: **A light Japanese coat that typically runs to mid-thigh or knee level. Cut in the same manner as a kimono, it was worn by both civilians and military as it could accommodate armor if necessary.

**Senbon: **A large metal needle used as a weapon.

**Seiza: **Kneeling with both legs bent.

**Shoji: **A light wooden mobile barrier that often served as a door.

**Squid Kiss: **Referencing a squid's suction cups and the previously mentioned Dream of the Fisherman's Wife and the associated tentacle sex genre.

_**A/N**_

_**Final Fantasy VII reference FTW. I hope ya'll have enjoyed this little venture as I certainly have. Lord knows it ate up my inspiration and time for a couple of months (apologizes profusely to Teen Titan's fans), but it's something that I just had to get out of my system. Originally this was supposed to be an uber-long epic where I actually would stick Aoshi w/Kaoru and Soujiro w/Megumi, but the more I wrote it, the more it seemed lacking in…something…what you might call soul. Technically it's proficient enough, but I guess after I had a chance to take a good long look at what I'd written, I just couldn't fall in love with it. Ah, well, such is capriciousness of the muses, eh...so, erm, how about pressing that little review button?**_

_**-Updated to include rating change and several minor edits.**_


	5. Intersections

_The pain and weariness fell off of Aoshi as surely as if he had stripped off his soaking clothes, and even as the rain seemed to pour harder, Aoshi felt the muted, effervescent thrill of knowing beyond all uncertainty that he would never stop._

_I'm coming…_

-))—((-

As a final whistle blast sounded its imminent departure, Aoshi hopped off the iron monstrosity that was the Kyoto-Tokyo train line and began the long walk back to the Kamiya dojo, navigating the gravel and feces of various pack animals and livestock to preserve his leather boots as best as he could.

Thanks to the documents he'd taken from Kanryu's manor shortly before killing the man, Aoshi had a means of sustaining himself. It was unfortunate that he'd not had more time or foresight and robbed Kanryu blind of all his liquidable assets, but contrary to the views some individuals liked to hold on to, men such as those in the Oniwaban were professionals. They would cheat, lie and steal without batting an eyelash, but when, where and to whom they did so was something carefully regulated by their code of honor. Furthermore, it would have been simply bad for business. Reputation was everything and if it were known by those powerful enough to be worthy of the Oniwaban's skills that the group was unreliable, then they were as good as dead. Had Kanryu not attempted to kill them, the Oniwaban would have simply faded back into the shadows and left the conniving bastard untouched. Still, while by no means rich, Aoshi now had enough immediate wealth, immediately withdrawn and carefully hid, that he could live in tolerable conditions for the rest of his life without working a day, or, as the case may be, prosecute a shadow war against the biggest drug syndicate in Japan. This was a day's business.

It would have been much simpler if he could bear the thought of assuming his rightful command of the Kyoto Oniwaban. While perhaps not as accomplished in direct combat as his Edo group, the Kyoto group was nonetheless an extremely competent collection of dedicated men and women. The extra manpower would certainly have been very useful. Even more important was his teacher and former head of the Oniwaban, Nenji, code named "Okina." Okina was a cunning and ruthless warrior whom Aoshi respected immensely. His old mentor would have been an invaluable source of insight and connections, in addition to being an extra set of eyes. Because no matter how good you were, there were always mistakes.

A cold comfort for his men, Aoshi thought, mouth set in a rigid line as he traversed the dusty road that lead towards the dojo, ignoring the shouted offerings of a dry good store's owner. It was just past noon. It would be evening by the time he arrived back.

Killing that fool, Goro, he had later heard, had been one such mistake. A mistake, but a strangely fortunate one. It had given him a home base well placed near several major crossroads of land and sea along with a legitimate excuse in the eyes of the authorities and the neighbors to be there.

Life fell into something of a routine for Aoshi. Each day began before daybreak, where he woke from a deep sleep full of dreams so vivid that he rarely felt as if he'd ever truly slept anymore, but instead walked with waking eyes through the times past. He'd shake the dreams from his eyes and wait for the ghosts to retreat back to the shadows before carefully folding the sheets while he shivered in the still cool morning air of new spring. He'd then change into the day's work clothes: a cheap, brown suit in western style or a black one of greater quality, each with a matching hat (a bowler with white trim for the brown, a short stove top for black), tie and a thin pair of bifocals. His only other adornment was a worn bag of polished black leather. As the rest of the household slept, he would begin boiling water for the morning's tea and a sparse breakfast of rice and bean curd. His meal consumed, he would slip on his coat in time for Dr. Genzai or one of his small nieces to stumble into the kitchen, eyes still heavy with sleep. Aoshi would give a short greeting, which might or might not be returned, depending on their lucidity, and then he would be gone for the day's "business" where he could be back by noon or gone for weeks on end.

He had began with the information he'd gleaned from the documents and his own memory as Kanryu's head of security, slowly and methodically beginning to get a map of the syndicate for which Kanryu had worked. This was easy, if costly. He talked to people, made offers, purchased the drug from a few very select individuals as means of showing his commitment. It wasn't long before he knew every single one of the syndicate's players in Tokyo area, dealers and distributors included. He ate little. He slept less.

The sun was beginning to set when Aoshi returned to the Tomohae district. He quietly passed by the crowd gathered around an elderly crier , not bothering to stop and glance, but listening all the same.

"Newest Tokyo Massacre in the Yoshiwara district: fourteen dead in two nights! The Chief of Police is urging all citizens to exercise extreme caution with the escalating gang violence and asks that you report anything suspicious immediately... "

Aoshi allowed himself a grim smile and wondered how long it would take before the remnants of Kanryu's organization and the police to realize that this was not an attempted coup. With the help of the Oniwaban, Megumi's high-potency opium and his Chinese backers, Kanryu had effectively established a monopoly on the opium trade in Japan .When news of Kanryu's death had spread, his various lieutenants had immediately split amongst themselves into various group and factions, dividing the populous areas into a shifting patchwork of warring fiefdoms. Paroxysms of violence gripped the country and it was into that chaos that he dove headlong each day. He had his list of names. Three were dead as of yesterday and from their deaths he had learned new names.

Aoshi resisted the pointless urge to walk faster. Every day he gave the lieutenants, the more they would hunker down and even potentially band together, making reaching them that much more difficult. He would get them though, that he swore. Then he would go to China...

As Aoshi turned the last corner to the dojo, he saw a familiar pair of faces.

"Minoru, Minoru, Minoru!" Two tiny voices chorused like little songbirds. The two girls ran out to meet him in a whirlwind of stubby limbs and flying hair. Forcing back his annoyance, Aoshi dropped his bag and scooped the girls up in his arms. "Oof!" Aoshi made of show of almost dropping the two causing them to shriek with delight. "You two get bigger each time I come back here."

"Make us more cranes!" Ayame demanded. "More cranes!" Suzumi echoed, throwing her arms up in celebration and hitting Aoshi in the face. He grit his teeth and kept his smile in place for where they went someone else was assured to follow. The sharp **crack, crack**, **crack** of wood being slapped against wood told him he had been correct. The girls instantly ceased their prattling as all three looked over to see Kaoru standing in the doorway, bokken held lightly in hand.

"Oh, it looks like it's dinner time," Aoshi said as he sat both of them down. "Tell you what, if you behave for the rest of the evening, I'll teach you how to make your own origami fans." The two girls both cried out in delight then skipped inside together in a race to see who could wash off first. Aoshi let a smile grace his lip; tired, but genuine. It wasn't so long ago that he'd folded paper cranes for another young girl. Aoshi's dreams of younger days came to a sudden end when he realized Kaoru was staring at him with a mixture apologetic embarrassment and expectation.

"Things have been going well?" Aoshi asked as the two stepped inside. Out of the corner of his eye, Aoshi saw Kaoru nod. "Ah, something smells delicious," he said, taking in a deep breath as they stepped into the modest but well appointed kitchen. He quickly made his way over towards the pot of stew that was sitting and scooped up a spoonful. After carefully blowing on it to make sure he didn't scald his tongue, he took it all in one long helping, sighing with satisfaction as he did so. It was somewhat bland, true, but a vast improvement over earlier attempts. All that time in convalescence hadn't been completely wasted. Besides, he was _hungry_.

"Very good," he said, watching as her the soft blues of her eyes came alive with genuine pleasure. Aoshi took the moment to examine Kaoru surreptitiously, a slight frown on his face. A month after her fight with the fake hitokiri and the young woman was dangerously thin from ingesting almost nothing, but broth for weeks. And while most of the ugly black and yellow had faded with the swelling, the subtle permanent damage to her facial bones was now at last becoming evident: a nose that was slightly off center, the way the eye socket on her right side crumbled in slightly compared to the healthy one on the right. Aoshi found himself wondering at the possibility of her never marrying. She was already ostracized for her tomboyish ways and for being an orphan. The dojo might be considered a mark in her favor, but its value was mostly sentimental. Still, she seemed happy in spite of all of it.

Dinner was a fairly quiet affair broken up by his small exchanges with Dr. Genzai disguising his business and the rice trade that Aoshi supposedly ran with Kaoru managing a few small interjections when she could stand to move her jaw. Aoshi answered all their questions confidently, talking about everything without saying anything. It normal. It was comforting. It was driving him insane.

Raised a ninja, Aoshi had practiced deception in one form or another his entire life. He was alive because his life was a lie. But something about sitting down and breaking bread with Kaoru and her adopted family made his bones ache and his skin feel too old and tight for his spirit, so that he just wanted to claw himself apart and scream. The dichotomy of his existence...the endless stream of days and nights planning in abandoned buildings and tailing leads, killing, unleashing the barely caged demon that screamed and clawed inches below his chest, accepting, embracing, _pleading _for death...then to box all that away so that they wouldn't suspect; go from Aoshi to Minoru...he endured it all because he knew he must, because he had invested too much of his revenge into this quaint little family relic. He'd gone so far as to strike a deal with the tiny band. Minoru rented the Kamiya dojo as a temporary office and records archive. He filled a room full of scrolls about old rice records and other nicknacks, employed Kaoru herself as an ad-hoc secretary, all for this serendipitous location next to several major land and sea highways just outside the syndicate's territory.

Ayame and Suzumi broke out into tittering laughter. Aoshi pleased himself by not snapping his chopsticks in half and looked longingly out the door, wishing himself gone already. Aoshi felt a powerful urge to drink at the thought of the all the correspondence he had yet to take care of. It never took much, just a few cups. Aoshi blinked in surprise when he felt a gentle hand upon his. He looked to his side and found Kaoru glancing up at him worriedly.

"We're going for a walk," Kaoru managed stiffly, withdrawing her hand and standing up. The girls inevitably celebrated this, but Kaoru shook her head. This was to be about business, apparently. Dr. Genzai quickly took rein over the two children while Kaoru made a hurried visit to her room before starting out the door, clearly expecting him to follow. Not wishing to fight with the obstinate woman and quite honestly wishing to go outside anyway, Aoshi easily acquiesced.

The sun had almost completely dipped below the horizon as the two stepped out of the dojo and into the street, illuminating long, windswept tracks of cloud that flowed above around smaller puffs of fishes scales in a warm, red light that diffused into warm purples and golds. Aoshi found them retracing his earlier steps in reverse back into the market district. Most of the shoppers had already left and the merchants were packing away their wares and loading up their carts, though a few still remained. He did not know where they were going, but he was content to let her lead him along silently, for which he was grateful. Eventually, however, his curiosity grew stronger than his weariness.

"I take it you had something you wanted to talk about," Aoshi stated as the two wove their way through the upstream through the departing crowd. Kaoru shook her head. "No," she said, wincing slightly as she did so. She slowed down a little so that the two were side by side and she could could look him in the eye. A hint of emotion like to embarrassment or grief that he couldn't quite guess at passed through her still lovely features as she struggled to speak. "You're...stressed," she said and Aoshi cursed himself for letting the facade drop. He gave her a tired smile and a shrug, as if to say, well, what can you do?

"Work is work," Aoshi responded by way of explanation. Kaoru seemed to accept this, but it did not change whatever it was that bothered her.

"It's just you've..." she grimaced as more pain undoubtedly flashed through her jaw, but instead of waiting she continued, grinding out eat syllable as if it were gravel, "you've done so much for us."

"Hn," Aoshi grunted, thinking that he understood her plight and not wishing to say anything one way or another. Kaoru's finances had already been in trouble before the incident with the fake Battousai. Swords were giving way to firearms in both the military and in popular imagination, driving down demand for kendo instructors. Additionally, there was the fact of her gender and the Kamiya Kasshin's non-lethal nature, something that marked it as decidedly inglorious. Aoshi's employment of her to run messages and manage the accounts of his faux-buisness was essentially the only thing that enabled her to avoid selling the family dojo. She'd actually proven quite useful in her ignorance and he found himself wishing for another runner, if only he could afford it. Comfortable living for a stoic such as himself was one thing. Funding what amounted to a guerrilla war was quite another undertaking and it demanded that he covet every yen. Immersed in his thoughts, Aoshi almost missed the hand that snaked into his pocket.

"Ow, shit, what's the big deal!" cried the young boy as Aoshi twisted his arm around his back, applying pressure to keep him in painful suspension. "That's no way to speak around a lady," Aoshi mildly replied. "Screw you, ah!" Aoshi rolled his eyes as he twisted the the boy's arm up higher. "If my dad were here, he'd kick your ass-**ack!**" Aoshi could feel his headache growing and this left him feeling a tad vicious. Aoshi steered him right back in the direction they'd came towards the center of the merchants putting up shop.

"Where are you taking me?" asked the boy with a slight note of panic creeping into the anger. He was of average size with tanned skin from long hours outdoors and short, black hair that was spiked wildly from what was probably a combination of sloppy haircuts and built up dirt and grease.

Aoshi ignored Kaoru's muffled demands for an explanation and came to a stop in the middle of the bewildered merchants. Then, without loosening his grip in the smallest fraction, he looked up at all of the surrounding merchants. "My name is Minoru Yoshiru, a rice merchant!" he called out without additional preamble, his voice easily ringing out above the sounds of the cool evening air as he twisted the boy around for everyone to get a good view. "and _this _young man is a criminal who makes his living stealing from honest merchant's such as ourselves."

"Bastard," the boy ground out in the dumb founded silence that followed. It did not last long though. "It's true!" Aoshi watched as a short, but massive man angrily parted the crowd, his thick arms and blood spattered apron marking him as a butcher. The boy visibly paled. "I recognize the little son of a bitch made off with my cash box when I was talking to a customer!" This was joined by a few other growing murmurs. Out of the corner of his eye, Aoshi watched the ruffian inch in closer, cutting off the escape route should the boy run.

"Do not worry, he will see justice done," and with that, Aoshi pushed the adolescent out away from the crowd and towards the police station. On the way out, he gave his shadow a very visible and pointed glare. "Do you want to join him?" he asked in a voice laced with sarcasm. The man took the hint and faded back into the crowd. They passed by a few buildings and the boy made a belated escape attempt, which only resulted in his arm being audibly popped. It wasn't long before he was shaking with emotion.

"Perhaps you should've thought this through before hand," Aoshi remarked, praying to the spirits that the boy wouldn't start bawling because then he'd have to deal with Kaoru who was already looking increasingly concerned.

Ignoring the grip Aoshi had on his arm, the boy looked over his shoulders at him, his dark eyes ablaze."There was nothing else to do!"

"Too much work to find an actual job, but you have the energy to stalk me for three blocks?" Aoshi asked with a raised eyebrow. The boy colored and his face went through an unusual series of spasms as he struggled to respond with his fear and passion screaming at him. "No one hires an orphan whose dad's side lost the war," he ground out, anger surging up and again surpassing all else. Aoshi felt Kaoru's concerned hand on his arm, but he ignored her, all of his focus now on his half sized captive.

"Oh?" Aoshi asked in honest interest. The boy nodded harshly, alternatively meeting both his and Kaoru's eyes. "I'm Yahiko Myojin and my father was Ginrei Myojin, a samurai of the Emperor!" Surprisingly, Aoshi saw no true reason to disbelieve him. He was vaguely familiar with Myojin by reputation: stolid, skilled and unimaginative. He'd also developed a bit of a gambling problem towards the end of war, which would fit nicely with this Yahiko's story. But what really attracted Aoshi resided not in Yahiko's story, but in the boy's himself. He was no longer afraid, his every attribute cried out in anger, pride and shame. Unconsciously, Aoshi found himself responding to the teen. The faces of four other warriors drifted before his eyes. They too, had been defeated without a fight and they had hated themselves because of it.

Perhaps it was not enough to merely erase, Aoshi thought. Perhaps he would create as well as destroy, but first, a test.

"So you're a samurai, eh?" Aoshi asked, his voice dipping deep into disappointment. "I see no samurai before me." The boy swelled with emotion and Aoshi almost raised his hand to defend himself, but the boy abruptly stopped himself, bursting out, "How the hell am I supposed to be a samurai if I can't get out of my family's debt and no one trains me?."

"Foisting responsibility, how very merchant-like of you." Aoshi stated dryly, which immediately shut the brat up. "Samurai, eh?" Aoshi repeated, a disbelieving smirk on his face. "I've been known to be wrong before," Aoshi said contemplatively. Then, much to the Yahiko's amazement, he released him with a rough shove.

"If you're tired of scratching away a living stealing from better men than yourself, come see me at the Kamiya Dojo." And with that, he walked away, leaving behind both Yahiko and Kaoru amazed. For the first time, the tiny smile Aoshi wore on the outside mirrored his inner feeling. It looked like he'd found his errand boy.

**A/N: Hey, hey, hey...it's been a while, eh? Initially, I didn't really feel like continuing this, but not too long ago, inspiration struck. I'm still not really sure if I want to bother with this, but I banged this out over an inspired afternoon figured some people might get a kick out of it. Who knows, maybe I'll actually take it up again.**


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